The Food Forest

Crackers that don't drive you nuts!

Storing nuts in their shells is nature's way of giving you a fresh, crunchy treat. The shell contains anti-oxidants that prevent the rancidity that drives you crazy when you buy the inevitably stale packets of kernels from supermarkets. But where do you get efficient high speed nutcrackers for difficult nuts like macadamias, pecans and walnuts?

That was Graham Brookman's problem: he had beautiful, fresh, organically grown nuts to sell but people shied away from buying them in-shell because cracking them was slow and frustrating.

One day he came across an old, strange looking nut cracker at a clearing sale. He couldn't resist the bargain and found that the little sheller revolutionised the speed and accuracy of cracking walnuts and pecans. He found an engineering company that was able to mass manufacture a stronger version of what he calls the 'bolt-action cracker' which cracks nuts end-on-end, thus producing unbroken kernels.

Thrilled with the success he looked for a quick macadamia cracker and had some more luck in finding Trevor Harry, an artisan toolmaker in Queensland who makes the ultimate mcaca cracker and became a South Australian agent for him.

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