NUTT RANCH

The Nutt Ranch is a hazelnut orchard located in the Waihopai Valley in Marlborough. It is an eight hectare porperty wth three hectares of vineyard and 1700 hazelnut trees. Keith, a civil engineer and Georgina, an architect, took over the property 6 years ago. They didn't intend to buy a nut orchard. "The trees and nut business just happened to come with the property, we loved the location and ambience of the property." Neither of them knew anything about hazelnuts so it was a steep learning curve. They have seven different varieties of hazelnut but the predominant one is whiteheart hazelnut.

The hazelnut harvest takes 6 weeks from March to April and once harvested the nuts are processed as required. They are put through a cracking machine, hand sorted and every nut or peice of nut is used in their range of products. This ensures customers are always buying freshly processed nuts that are no more than a week or two old. Keith states "We will always be handcrafting from what we harvest, we won't have a big stainless steel factory making tonnes of product. We just love working in the orchard and vineyard and seeing people enjoy our products".

Georgina really like attending the Nelson Farmers Market and the intimate setting it provides. There is a friendly atmosphere and a nice range of products. Keith and Georgina are particularly proud that all aspects of the nut are used. A popular product is their cold-pressed oil which they press themselves. After the oil has been extracted Keith turns the leftover solids into hazelnut flour that is either sold or used in the dog biscuits they also make.

Products:

Hazelnut oil, variety of hazelnut butter, plain and roasted hazelnut in various flavours, dog treats.

Availability:

Available every third Wednesday in the month