Macadamia FAQ · Growers, buyers, kernel & nut-in-shell Straight answers about macadamias.

Deliver to the Merger Nuts facility at Portion 4, Farm Rietfontein 274 JT, Alkmaar, just outside Mbombela (Nelspruit) in the Mpumalanga Lowveld. Farm-gate collection is also available.

We process for commercial growers across the Mpumalanga Lowveld, Limpopo (Levubu, Tzaneen, Letsitele) and KwaZulu-Natal (North Coast, Zululand).

How delivery works →

Yes. We offer farm-gate collection, so your crop can come to Alkmaar without you arranging transport. Talk to us before the season starts so collection can be scheduled around your harvest.

Every load is weighed, sampled and recorded on arrival, and you get the numbers the same day. Our ERP tracks the delivery from intake through drying, cracking and grading, so every result is traceable back to your weighbridge ticket.

On what it actually yields. Samples from each delivery are assessed for moisture, sound kernel recovery (SKR), unsound kernel and kernel quality, and those results drive what your crop is worth. The numbers are shared openly and you are paid on schedule.

Sound kernel recovery is the mass of sound, saleable kernel expressed as a percentage of the dried nut-in-shell delivered. In South Africa it is normally reported on a nut-in-shell basis at 1.5% kernel moisture, and industry benchmarks have averaged roughly 33%.

Unsound kernel recovery (USK) is the share of kernel rejected for defects such as insect damage, mould, immaturity or discolouration. Higher SKR, lower USK and a higher share of whole kernels all raise the value of a delivery.

Talk to us about your drying set-up before harvest. We dehusk and dry in controlled silos, bringing moisture down to specification before any shell is cracked, and deliveries are valued on a dry basis: the South African standard is nut-in-shell at 1.5% kernel moisture.

Yes. The Merger Nuts growers portal shows your deliveries, QC results and remittances at any time, straight from the same ERP records we work from.

Yes. Our team manages its own macadamia orchards, so agronomic and harvest-timing advice comes from people who farm the same crop and answer their phones.

Kernel styles are the trade's size and shape grades. Each style sets the minimum share of wholes or halves and the size range in millimetres, so buyers know exactly what is in the carton.

Merger Nuts grades nine styles, from Style 0 (wholes over 20 mm, at least 95% wholes) down to Style 7 (small pieces of 3 to 6 mm). Style numbering is broadly shared across origins, but size bands vary slightly between processors and national standards, so always buy against a spec sheet.

A whole is a kernel not split into halves, with no more than a quarter of the kernel missing, provided its shape is not materially affected. A half is half of a whole kernel with no more than an eighth of its mass missing. Pieces are kernels broken naturally or diced to the size ranges of Styles 5, 6 and 7.

It depends on the application. Wholes (Styles 0, 1L and 1S) suit premium retail and snacking, halves (Styles 4L, 4 and 4S) suit roasting, coating and snack mixes, and pieces (Styles 5, 6 and 7) suit bakery, confectionery, ice cream and ingredient use.

Every batch is graded to specification and vacuum-packed in 11.34 kg (25 lb) units, the international standard carton for macadamia kernel.

Yes. South Africa is one of the world's largest macadamia producers and its largest exporter, shipping almost its entire crop abroad. The main growing regions are Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, with smaller plantings in the Western Cape.

From about March to August, depending on cultivar and region. Early cultivars such as 816 and 788 are picked from March, while Beaumont, the most widely planted cultivar, follows later in the season.

Freshly harvested macadamias carry too much moisture to crack or store safely. They are dried in stages until the kernel reaches about 1.5% moisture, which protects flavour and shelf life and lets the shell crack cleanly. It is also the basis on which South African deliveries are valued.

A processor, also called a cracker or handler, receives growers' nuts, removes the husk, dries the nut-in-shell, sizes and cracks it, sorts and grades the kernel into styles, packs it and sells it to buyers around the world. The processor's grading, recovery and marketing largely determine what growers are paid.