Hazelnut Season in Turkey
The hazelnut, so familiar to us here, originally comes from Turkey. The world's largest hazelnut-growing region lies along the Turkish Black Sea coast. The area stretches from Rize to Akçakoca and offers the best climatic conditions for growing this nut. While hazelnut plantations do exist in other Mediterranean countries, they can't compare in volume to those in Turkey. Turkish hazelnuts cover 70% of global demand. Around 800,000 tonnes of hazelnut kernels are harvested each year on 660,000 hectares of land and sold to the rest of the world.
Hazelnuts are rich in unsaturated fatty acids and vitamin E. They also contain almost twice as much calcium as milk, along with plenty of magnesium, and also zinc, iron and copper. So hazelnuts aren't just super tasty and very healthy for direct consumption. The Turkish hazelnut is also an important raw material for the processing industry, serving as the base for ice cream, chocolate, pastries and more. World-famous companies like Ferrero (Nutella), Nestlé and Manner are buyers of the Turkish hazelnut.
The hazelnut fields are mostly family-owned by small hazelnut farmers. When harvest season begins, it kicks off a turbulent time across the entire Black Sea region. All family members and friends pitch in to help. Harvesting usually takes place in August. There's a joke that when harvest time approaches, people on the Black Sea coast drop everything and sprint to the harvest 😊 From simple helpers to office workers to academics... every possible resource among relatives gets mobilized and pitches in! Work starts before sunrise, and depending on how large the plantation is, harvesting continues for several days until sunset. Some hazelnuts are picked directly from the tree, others are gathered from the ground. This work is undoubtedly very strenuous! But once the work is done, there's relief and hope for a bountiful yield. The hazelnuts are then laid out to dry for several days before they can be sold.
The adventurous journey of the hazelnut might be quickly told, but for those involved, it's certainly not always easy to carry out. We take our hats off to all the hard-working people out there and wish all the farmers rewarding harvests.