Walnut Hulling & Drying

Serving Butte, Glenn and Tehama County walnut growers, Capay Farms Hulling and Drying provides high quality custom services for large and small growers. Using our custom-built Thomas (Thomas Mfg, Chico, CA) equipment, the huller and dryer has the capacity to facilitate our growers’ harvest needs. Constant monitoring, sampling and adjustments of the hulling equipment help us run every grower’s lot as custom product.

Capay Farms hulls outside-grower’s product with the same high standards of their own product. Our goal is to achieve the highest quality for the highest return.

Time is of the essence to our growers and the quality of their walnuts. Our hulling and drying capabilities keep our growers’ harvest on track and help to preserve the quality of their crop.

“Time is of the essence to the walnut grower, to enhance the quality of their product.” 

– Paul Violich

• Expedited grower product runs

• Accelerated trailer turnaround time for grower’s benefit

• Two custom-designed Thomas Huller lines with capacity to run 450 tons of walnut product every 8 hours

• Seamless logistics for coordination with the grower’s harvest team to keep grower’s field operations on schedule

• Dual trailer unloading for fast turn a round of product delivery

• We provide “same day hulling”, capacity to run grower’s product the same day as delivered

Pre-Cleaning with Aspiration

• Pre cleaner with aspiration

• Earlier extraction of field debris

• Separation of field debris

• Earlier product quality control

• Three sets of high-volume aspirators

• Manage fine-tuned extraction of shrivel and blows

• Substantially reduce foreign material

Strategically Designed Process Line 

• 48-inch Jesse Hullers

• Five high pressure product washing stations

• Agitated wash facilitates a clean product

• Important for inshell appearance

• Critical in wet harvest years to clean dirty product from the field

• Four Hand sorting tables - final screen for perfect product

• Double laser color sorters to focus on off color, separating “greens” and blacks, as well as other defects to enhance overall quality

Careful Handling and Drying 

• 192 temperature-monitored drying bins

• Close monitoring of drying process to achieve optimum moisture content

• Terraced let down for gentle handling of walnuts

• 8 million BTU 180-degree pre-dryer

• Pre-dryer expedites product drying time and will enhance kernel quality

Data Driven Product Analysis

• Incoming and outgoing weight and product sampling with prompt reports by lot to grower

• Enhances ability of grower to monitor processor grading