Product developer Mattson and the California Almond Board have developed a process to use almond hulls – the soft, fruit-like covering that grows around the shell – as an ingredient in food, including high-fiber nutrition bars, coffee, tea and possibly even beer.
The project has been in the works for more than a year with the goals of making almonds more sustainable and to upcycle its main byproduct into a usable ingredient.
The almond hull is like the flesh of a peach, although less tasty for humans; they’re high in sugars but have too many bitter tannins. Cows like the taste, so currently the hulls are sold as dairy feed. In 2022, almond hulls displaced the need for more than 400,000 acres of alfalfa, according to the Almond Board, saving more than 1.3 million acre-feet of water – enough for more than 2 million households.
Almonds are not technically nuts. They are drupes, another comparison to peaches, with the shell akin to the pit of a peach, and the kernel inside that pit/shell. The shells are used for livestock bedding and other products, including strengthening recycled plastics.
Mattson researchers recently crossed a threshold where their proof-of-concept samples demonstrate that the hulls can be viable additions to future food products – and offset the need to grow or produce other ingredients.
The next step will be gaining Generally Recognized As Safe certification from FDA for hulls as a food ingredient in the U.S. That work is underway and the dossier will include things like allergen and toxicity data.
At IFT Expo in July, the Almond Board will be offering interested manufacturers the unique opportunity to schedule a meeting to discuss the results and implications of the research in more detail.