MEET YOUR {OUTSTANDING} SUPREME CHAMPION - PINOLI PREMIUM PINE NUTS

When people talk about long term vision they usually mean three to five years. So planting a crop which requires eight – 10 years before it produces is certainly long term planning! Pinoli Premium Pine Nuts visionary founders Andy and Barb Wiltshire are the only commercial producers of pine nuts in the Southern Hemisphere. Their determination was recognised when they were named Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards 2023 Supreme Champion. Here’s their story….

Saying commercially growing pine nuts in NZ couldn’t be done was all it took for Andy Wiltshire to dive head first into a totally new venture – not only new for them but new for New Zealand too. Never tell a kiwi guy he can’t do something right?

With a long history in the forestry industry Andy thought there might be a more interesting way to grow pine trees in New Zealand. Instead of growing pine trees and cutting them all down every 25 or 30 years, Andy believed they could become a long-term resource for sustainable, great food. Plus, he and wife Barb and Pinoli Premium Nuts General Manager, Lee Paterson were gourmet foodies so it seemed a natural fit to start growing an edible pine variety.

Being pioneers in pine nut production thirty years ago meant Andy and Lee faced plenty of challenges. At the start because they were the only company growing and harvesting pine nuts there was no-one they could bounce ideas off or learn from. However, this only served to super-charge their ingenuity, they had to find a way to do everything themselves. In the early days they say processing was cobbled together the ‘number 8 wire’ way.

More than thirty years on, Pinoli remains privately-owned and is solely focused on growing and processing the finest pine nuts. They have around 12,000 mature trees in Marlborough’s Wairau Valley and another 550,000 trees in the region from just-producing to very young. In 2013 they built a world-class processing facility on their forest land in Marlborough. Pinoli supplies food lovers throughout New Zealand and also in Australia and has begun exporting pine nuts to the food-obsessed Italians.

Prior to the pair setting up Pinoli, European stone pine nuts from the European stone pine (Pinus pinea) were practically impossible to purchase in New Zealand. The stone pine, or umbrella pine – as it is also known - is the pine nut of Mediterranean cooking from Spain, Italy, southern France, Greece, the middle east, Turkey and north Africa. They are preferred in Europe over Chinese nuts and sell for a significant premium.

Being able to offer New Zealanders a completely kiwi-grown product not previously available here is fantastic, according to the Pinoli team. Barb Wilshire says Pinoli Pine Nuts are 35% protein - the highest of any nut - vegan and vegetarian and taste great! Customers are blown away with the freshness and flavour of New Zealand-grown pine nuts compared to the imported varieties.

In addition to being named Supreme Champion 2023, Pinoli Premium Pine Nuts was named Farro Earth Champion and received a Gold Medal. The Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards judges were blown away by the quality of these little nuts saying; “Excellent, amazing flavour and aroma and a nice little sweetness at the end. An awesome product all round. The favourite product we tasted all day!”

For info on Pinoli Premium Pine Nuts nutritional value, lots of recipes and to purchase New Zealand’s only Supreme Champion pine nuts s visit www.pinoli.co.nz