We were fortunate enough to forge an early relationship with the “ELGO-Demeter” R&D Facility in Lykovrisi, Athens (GR), establishing together with the “Institute of Technology on Agricultural Products” a 3-yr R&D program, funded jointly by Greece & EU, under the “COMPETITIVENESS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INNOVATION Operational Programme 2014-2020”.

Within these years (2020-2024), we researched the subjects of:

• Prolonging the life of fresh nuts, by applying post-harvest storage, packaging and handling in optimum environment, with specially developed protocols for both shelled and non-shelled produce.
• Testing & optimizing an athermal-drying process and protocols, which preserve 35% or more nutritional ingredients (compared to the standard thermal-drying process), thus being very close to the fresh-nut color, texture & taste.
• Experimenting with the extraction of the walnut’s green husk useful ingredients, a by-product wasted during the shelled-nut washing (and “de-husking”) process.
• Gauging the current (Average) Environmental Footprint of a typical “small-to-medium” Walnut Orchard and assessing the positive difference that may occur by replacing fossil fuels (wherever feasible) with electrification and other technological improvements in orchard farming.
• Investigating the possibility of applying the soonest possible the latest ‘Block-Chain” software for the food industry at the total “nut harvest & post-harvest processing”, thus providing best possible provenance, daily batch follow-up and storage conditions (temperature & humidity).