The engineering behind better Australian hazelnuts
Australia imports most of its hazelnuts. A UNSW researcher is hoping to change that, working with local growers to improve quality after harvest.
Published on the 05 August 2026
Pictured (left to right): Dr Yong Wang – Senior Lecturer, Dr Basil Baldwin, Pavittar Singh Sandhu
It’s clear Australians have a taste for hazelnuts, judging by offerings at supermarket, bakeries and restaurants around the country.
Beyond Nutella, hazelnuts are widely used in baking, cereals, granolas, oils, confectionery and savoury dishes. But despite that demand, Australia imports 98 per cent of its raw hazelnuts from overseas producers. Locally grown hazelnuts account for just two per cent of domestic demand.
UNSW Sydney PhD student Pavittar Singh Sandhu is working to help change that by engineering improvements to the hazelnut harvesting process at a farm in Orange, New South Wales.
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Email: m.eagles@unsw.edu.au
A crop with untapped potential
Global hazelnut production is concentrated in a few key countries – Turkey, Italy and the United States.
Like these countries, Australia has several regions where the climate is well suited to growing the crop. However, unlike the major northern hemisphere producers, Australia’s location in the southern hemisphere gives Australian growers a counter-seasonal autumn production window. This is a significant competitive advantage – Australian growers can sell fresh, local hazelnuts outside the northern hemisphere harvest window.
But Australia isn’t even close to meeting its current hazelnut demand. To get there, Australian growers need to improve their processes to challenge the incumbent sellers. For Pavittar, a key part of this is reevaluating the best way for growers to dry, store and assess the crop after harvest.
Original, bottom heated hazelnut drying rig
A better way to dry hazelnuts
Drying is an essential step in hazelnut production. When they are harvested from the orchard, the nuts contain high levels of moisture. If that moisture is not removed properly it can shorten the nuts shelf life – they can even grow mould and produce carcinogenic aflatoxins.
To dry the nuts, they are placed into large drying rigs and exposed to ambient or heated air over several weeks.
The current drying rigs push hot air through a vent at the bottom of the container. Pavittar and his colleagues found that, as the air rises through the nuts, it cools and becomes more humid. This means nuts at the bottom of the drying rigs can dry faster than those at the top.
“The produce at the bottom is much drier as compared to the produce that is in the upper zone,” Pavittar says. “And this actually gives us a very non-uniform produce.”
New, uniform hazelnut drying rig
Uneven drying can affect the quality of the crop. Pavittar says moisture is “one of the key factors” in produce quality, with drying conditions influencing shelf stability and other quality markers.
To address the problem, Pavittar designed and built a modified drying rig that changes how air moves through the container. Instead of relying on air entering from the bottom, his system uses a perforated tube and fan to distribute air more evenly through the centre of the dryer.
Modernising ‘Basil’s bite test’
At the farm in Orange where Pavittar is conducting his research, nuts are currently considered dry using what is known as ‘Basil’s bite test’.
Basil is Dr Basil Baldwin, a long-time hazelnut researcher and grower who helped establish hazelnut research in Australia and owns the farm where Pavittar is conducting his trials.
“So Dr Basil, he takes a hazelnut and he bites it and based on his experience…if he feels it’s dry, then it’s considered dry,” Pavittar explains.
Not every grower has Dr Basil’s lifetime of experience to rely on. To bring more precision to the process, Pavittar installed temperature and humidity sensors throughout the dryers. The sensors are connected via Starlink satellite internet, allowing drying conditions to be monitored remotely rather than relying only on in-person checks.
The sensors have also allowed Pavittar to compare his modified dryers with the original models.
“It’s actually working as we intended,” he says, with the new configuration “doing a much better job as compared to the previous models.”
From better drying to better storage
Pavittar is continuing to gather and analyse data from the modified dryering rigs. He is also developing a moisture-sensing system, similar to a moisture meter, that uses the electrical properties of the nuts to determine their dryness.
Storage is another future focus. Pavittar plans to investigate how long hazelnuts can be safely stored after drying, and whether better storage guidelines could help extend their shelf life and protect their commercial value. He says current storage parameters “are not developed yet”, with growers storing hazelnuts until orders come in.
To stay up to date with Pavittar’s research, follow him on Linkedin.
Pavittar’s research is part of the AUSHAZ research program, funded by AgriFutures Australia and led by Charles Stuart University.
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