Wholesale walnuts and nuts for professionals

Four families behind one word

At a wholesaler, "nuts" is not a product but a section. The walnut kernel in the strict sense sits alongside Brazil nuts, pecans and macadamia, which share neither price nor texture nor culinary use. Palimex, a food wholesaler since 1984, groups them because trade buyers look for them together, but each answers a purchasing logic of its own.

The walnut kernel is the volume of the section: it is the baker's, the pastry chef's and the cheesemonger's product. The other three are value references, bought in smaller quantities for a specific finish or positioning. Cashews, which follow an entirely different logic, have a dedicated section: wholesale cashew nuts.

Understanding kernel grades

This is where a buyer can genuinely save money. A kernel grade says nothing about taste: it describes shape and colour, two criteria that only matter if the product stays visible on the plate.

Franquette is the reference variety of the French walnut orchard. Extra Light, by contrast, is not a variety but a colour class: the paler the kernel, the higher its value, because it stays attractive to the eye on a finish. On the trade market, the price gap between Extra Light and Invalide can be wider than many buyers imagine, while the material itself is comparable.

The question we ask every customer ordering Extra: do your customers actually see the walnut? In nine walnut breads out of ten the answer is no — the kernel is broken up in the dough. Switching to Invalide for that use, while keeping Extra for the display, is the simplest margin gain in this section.

Brazil nuts, pecans, macadamia

The other three families are chosen on positioning rather than grade:

• Brazil nuts — 5 kg pails, 10x1 kg and 12x175 g. A large, highly visible grade with dense texture; it holds its place in a premium snack mix and on a platter, where it stands out immediately.
• Pecans — 6x1 kg plain, 5 kg pails sugared. Plain goes to American-style pastry and tarts; the sugared version is a ready-to-serve snacking and retail line.
• Raw Style 1 macadamia — 10x1 kg. The most upmarket reference in the section after pine nuts; Style 1 corresponds to whole nuts, which sends it to uses where it is seen and eaten as is.

Storage: fatty nuts, therefore perishable

All these nuts share one constraint: they are rich in fat and turn rancid well before their date if stored badly. Walnut kernels are particularly exposed — among the fastest of all nuts to turn in heat — and the fault is spotted by nose, never by eye: the kernel keeps its colour and takes on an old-oil smell.

Three rules cover it in practice: a dry, cool store rather than a temperate one, a resealed container away from light, and first-in first-out rotation with the opening date written on. On kernels held several weeks, cold storage extends keeping quality considerably. Taste a kernel before committing to a production run: two seconds saves throwing away a whole batch.

French origin and quality signs

The French walnut orchard is built around identified varieties, Franquette among them, and several growing areas hold official signs of quality and origin. These signs are defined and controlled by the French national institute of origin and quality: INAO — official signs of quality and origin. A buyer who advertises an origin on a menu or a label should check exactly what the wording covers, and keep the technical sheet of the reference ordered.

Ordering your wholesale nuts

Trade prices display once your account is approved, the site being reserved for registered businesses. Minimum pack size is 5 kg and delivery is by pallet, carriage paid above the threshold. For steady production — a weekly walnut bread, a permanent tart range — a scheduled quotation locks grade and origin across several deliveries, which avoids surprises from one lot to the next. You can consolidate your pallet across the whole wholesale dried fruit range.