Local nuts go worldwide

Dublin peanuts found in Payday bars around the world

Advertisement

By ASHLEY INGE
TheFlashToday.com

DUBLIN (September 20, 2018) – Olam Edible Nuts is a nut facility located in Dublin that produces and processes many kinds of nuts including peanuts, almonds, cashews, walnuts and more, but what makes this facility interesting is where these nuts end up. 

The facility dry roasts nuts for many different companies including Hershey, Nestle and General Mills, but for the Payday bar, Olam Edible Nuts is the only facility that dry roasts the nuts for the bar.

Jackie Gailey, the plant manager at Olam Edible Nuts, explains the history of dry roasting nuts for the Payday bar.

“We have been roasting the Payday bar since 2000. At the time it was strictly for the Payday bar but it has grown to [other companies.] We do all kinds of roasting for different companies, but the Payday bar is exclusive to this plant here in Dublin. We’re the only facility that roasts these peanuts for the Payday bar so every bar that you eat came from here,” Gailey said.

The peanuts have to be blanched first which is the removal of the red skin from the peanut and that is done through a heating and cooling process while the peanut is still raw.

Then, the peanuts are dry roasted. Dry roasting takes about three hours to do a truckload of peanuts.

After the peanuts are dry roasted, they are shipped out to the Hershey Robinson plant where the Payday bar is made.

Gailey says there are four other Olam Edible Nut facilities in the United States. There is a blanching facility in Blakely, Georgia, a blanching facility in Sylvester, Georgia and a roasting facility in Edenton, North Carolina.

“Our plant here in Dublin is the only multi-purpose plant. We actually do blanched peanuts which means that we remove the red skin from them or we can roast either one so we do both here. The company originated here in Dublin in 1990. That’s when we built the plant and I’ve been here ever since then. At the time, we only blanched them; we did not roast them,” Gailey said. “Most of the shellers around are customers like Golden Peanut that’s in Comyn or Birdsong Peanut that’s in Gorman. The company started out as Universal Blanchers. In 2009, I think it was, we were bought out by Olam and then in 2012 I think it was, we became Olam Edible Nuts which is just a company within the Olam company.”

With the other facilities in Georgia and North Carolina, many are probably left to wonder, why Texas? Or even why Dublin?

The reason Olam Edible Nuts choose Dublin for a facility was that the area was still big on peanuts in 1990.

“Comanche County was like the peanut capital of Texas at the time and there was a need for a facility this direction because the majority of the customers that Georgia plants were experiencing was shipping back to California and Texas to be exported in Mexico [and] Canada,” Gailey said. “They just needed a blanching facility this direction. It saved our customers on freight and made it closer to be shipped out and at the time in 1990, there was only the blanching facility in Blakely, Georgia. When Olam acquired this plant and the Blakely, Georgia plant, they also acquired the Sylvester and the Edenton plant so they actually bought our plants and then both of those two plants.”

Gailey said that many people have no idea that the nuts from Olam Edible Nuts are ending up in well-known companies’ products.

“We’ve been here since 1990 and we’ve been roasting since 2000 and a lot of people, they don’t realize that. They just think that…I mean we are in semi-peanut country over here, so they just think we’re another sheller or something. They don’t really understand everything that’s going on here and the big, name-brand companies that we do roasting for,” Gailey said. 


Advertisement

1 Comment

Leave a Reply to faycrowderCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.