Nick Erker: Hey, there. Welcome to Get the Scoop with Smirks Podcast, where bulk ingredient conversation happens. We’re sharing our knowledge and expertise as bulk ingredient importers, tapping into the latest trends we are seeing and commenting on what that means for natural food businesses as they approach ingredient purchasing, product development, and marketing. You’ll hear the latest market reports, ingredient specifications, and product applications from Smirk’s in-house experts, as well as origin stories from our growers and processors around the world. Listen in for the scoop on what’s happening with bulk ingredients.
Elisa Louis: Thanks for joining us for another fun-filled exciting episode of Get the Scoop with Smirk’s. I’m Elisa Louis, and I’m joined by the ever-enthusiastic, Donny Edson.
Donny Edson: Hi, everyone. We have a special treat for you today. Our friend and industry partner, Gino Hartounian from Mixed Nuts Inc. based in Los Angeles is with us today. We’re excited to chat about Mixed Nut’s business, products, capabilities, then take a deep dive into pumpkin seed products, trends and the pumpkin seed market. Gino, welcome to the podcast.
Gino Hartounian: Elisa, Donny, thank you so much. Super happy to be here. I love what you guys are doing with the podcast. It really brings a different side into this industry, so I love it. I’m glad to be a part of it.
Elisa Louis: Alright. Well, let’s kick things off with a little bit of nostalgia. Donny, how did Smirk’s team first come and cross paths with Gino’s dad, Nick Hartounian, and the fantastic team at Mixed Nuts.
Donny Edson: Well, like most of our longtime partners, the relationship almost predates Smirk’s. It all began with our original business of in shell sunflower seeds through Erker Grain, Mike Erker was selling in Shell sunflower seeds to Gino’s dad and uncle for a long time. That’s how we got to know mixed nuts at Smirk’s. I think it was around 2011 or so I made my first trip to Los Angeles, and I got to meet Nick, Gino’s dad, and Vic, Gino’s uncle. And at that time, we only worked with sunflower seeds with mixed nuts. But after touring their plant and getting to know them, we were able to start selling their pumpkin seeds as well. In addition, we were able to help start supplying mixed nuts with items Smirk’s is strong in.
Over the years, we’ve remained very close friends with the whole family. I remember taking Nick to an awesome dinner in Dubai one time at one of our favorite Persian restaurants. And every time we’re in LA, we try to make a trip to see the whole family there. Generally, there’s food involved too. I remember several years ago when Nick told me he was gonna take Gino on the road trip with him to see all the almond walnut growers. I think at the time, Gino was maybe 15 or 16. I’m sure he’ll talk about this. And if you fast forward to today, we talk about a lot more than food ingredients.
We always keep in touch about our family, business, investments, and life outside of Smirk’s and Mixed Nuts as well.
Elisa Louis: The power of sunflower seeds bringing people together. Now, Gino, please tell us more about Mixed Nuts. When and how did it all begin, and what sets your family-owned business apart?
Gino Hartounian: Yeah. So Mixed Nuts Incorporated Was born in 1986, actually, as a retail store, small retail store in Los Angeles. They used to roast their own nuts and sell them in small very, very small batches to regular consumers. Few years passed, then We completely transitioned from retail to manufacturing, closed the the storefront, and just went full force into manufacturing. And now After all those years, today, we specialize in dry oil, roasting, and flavoring and mixing of all types of nuts, seeds, trail mixes, and dried fruits. Today, we cater to nearly 15,000 retail stores nationwide under our own brand, Premium Orchard, which you might see behind me right now. And we also do quite a bit of private label for some chains as well. We do a lot of custom roasting and bulk ingredient sales to customers like Smirk’s, actually, and we love partnering on projects like that.
And what kinda sets us apart, we’re completely vertically integrated outside of being a farmer as well. So we are importers and processors and packers all under the same roof, which allows us to stay very aggressive and on pricing. And since we’re still family owned, we’re not a huge company, so we move very quickly. And we are very capable of adapting to whatever our customer needs and cater to them as quickly as we can. And hopefully, Donny, with your experience with us, hopefully, it’s been good, and, we appreciate the business. We love working with you guys. It’s a very, there’s a lot of synergy between us, so we’re able to work 2 ways. I guess you could say.
Donny Edson: Yeah, I would agree with the synergies on that.
Gino Hartounian: And then, also, since we’re on the topic of pumpkin seeds today, I do wanna mention, as of recently, we are now one of the largest importers of lady nail pumpkin seeds which is a variety that we’ll definitely be talking about in this episode. Right, Donny?
Donny Edson: Yeah, absolutely. I can tell you from my side, It’s been really exciting to see the growth of your business over the years, especially from the smaller facility that we first visited you in. We got to go down this year in March before Expo West and check out the new facility that you’ve been in for 3 years. How long have you been in there for, Gino?
Gino Hartounian: Going on 5
Donny Edson: 5 years. Yeah.
Gino Hartounian: Going on 5
Donny Edson: Well, there’s kind of that blank 3 year slot known as COVID where no one really remembers what happened during that time, but, yeah. And some of the things that I love about their facility is we use mixed nuts for peanut products and for seed products, but they’re in different divisions of the company. They’re in different divisions of the building, so even though you can buy peanuts from them, you don’t have the peanut allergens when you buy the pumpkin seeds. They have completely different lines for that. I also am really impressed with the technology they have for food safety, particularly around their x-ray that they have on all their machines. Even the ability to pack your stuff in food service packaging and do X-ray on that too. So like I said, it’s just been really cool to see your guys’ business. I’m also really impressed with the knowledge you you guys have amassed. Gino too, because you’re still pretty new into the industry, but I have to give you a shout out because on one of our podcasts, we talked about trail mixes, and I actually picked Gino’s brain for quite a while about trends and and what’s going on with trail mixes before we recorded that, and I promised him that I’d give him a shout out on that. And I can’t remember if I did or not, so I lied and said that it was edited out. So anyways, here’s your shout out now, Gino. So.
Gino Hartounian: I appreciate it. Thank you.
Elisa Louis: Absolutely. I concur. And if anybody wanted wants to check out that episode, that was episode number 5 on Trail Mixes. But speaking of you, Gino, and kind of your own personal story, as a young 2nd generation member of the business, how has the journey been for you personally?
Gino Hartounian: It’s actually kind of a funny story. Back when I was 15 or 16. Great memory, Donnie, you mentioned it at the beginning. I went on a road trip with my father to Fresno. Was a teenager. Just got my learner’s permit. The last thing I wanted to do was go on a business trip, but my dad told me, Gino, you could drive all the way up there. I love driving, and I took them up on the offer.
So we visited some of the almond and walnut producers, and I honestly fell in love. It was the first time I really saw firsthand what the family business was like, and it was super intriguing to me. And so from there, I worked summers at the business as a student in high school, and then I ended up going to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Shout out, Mustangs. And I got a major in agricultural business and a minor in entrepreneurship. So, after my education, I decided to go full force into the family business, and I’m super happy about my decision. For a while, I was always debating if I should or shouldn’t because of sometimes the stigma behind joining a family business out of college, but I honestly have not looked back at my decision. It’s been incredible, especially since I was taken under the wings of 2 professionals in the industry with over 60 years of experience, so I was really catapulted into this position.
And then about 2 years,I started out as the buyer when I came in out of college, which is fantastic opportunity. And about 2 years ago, I transitioned in more of an a to z role from vendor all the way to customer. So I act as the liaison between all parties, so I’m able to secure the raw material and watch it go through the whole processing experience and process, and, from there, make sure the product gets delivered to the customers. And I also have my own customers that I like to take care of, and I love talking to Donny, so it’s been awesome. I’m stoked to continue this journey.
Donny Edson: Yeah. And I can say that from my side, over the years, Mixed Nuts really helped us with a number of crazy projects and various projects, but they’re always my 1st call for roasted pumpkin seeds first and foremost. And for us, it’s, you know, at Smirk’s, it’s usually a dry roasted shine skin pumpkin kernel or it’s the, the Snow White pumpkin seeds that we sell as well. But in addition to, you know, as he mentioned, they’re vertically integrated. They import then too, but they’re also, Smirk’s is also vertically integrated where we import stuff. So sometimes they work as a toll processor for us too, which is really nice, where I can bring them in a truckload and have them do whatever I like with it to meet a customer. Yeah. Whether it’s a special pack size, you know, as I mentioned for food service or if it’s a custom flavored item that’s kind of more niche, then we can work with them on that. So, then some other things over the years, some customers have asked us for co packers, some simple things as easy as putting banana chips into a bag for them.
And so we’ve introduced people directly to Mixed Nuts and they’ve been able to help with some of those co packaging opportunities as well to help some of our customers and out. But Gino and his team have always made things happen for our company, and they’re very, very good to work with.
Gino Hartounian: Yeah. Donny, your your guys are your team your whole team. I’ve met majority of them. And you guys are all great people, and we love working with you guys. And I love some of the projects you bring us, and we’ll do everything we can to try to make it work. Any sort of new roasting or flavoring. And I know we’ve done a lot on pumpkin seeds and shine skin and a little bit of snow white. But also quite a bit on sunflower recently, and I there’s a pistachio project I’m working on with your team at the moment as well as peanuts. We’ve done quite a few loads of peanuts like you had mentioned at the beginning. And, again, thank you for reminding everybody about the whole nitrogen flush, packing in different sizes, anything from 1 ounce all the way to 25 pounds, and including standard pouches.
Like you said, everything runs through X-ray examination, so Smirk’s is able to be secured in the food safety of everything that comes out of mixed nuts.
Elisa Louis: Now we promised we were going to talk about all things pumpkin seeds today. So, a little scoop on pumpkin seeds to get us started. The global pumpkin seed market was valued at 1.8B with a B, in 2022. And it’s expected to grow to 4.2B in 2032. This data comes from MarketResearch.biz, powered by Prudour Pvt. Ltd. These numbers cover not only pumpkin seeds by the way, but also pumpkin seed oil, powder, and seed extracts. Pumpkin seed products in general are a strong growth category. They’re also packed with nutrition, as they’re known to be a powerhouse of nutrients, rich in vitamins such as magnesium, zinc, and antioxidants, and they’re also downright tasty, I might add.
Donny Edson: That’s for sure, Elisa. Pumpkin seeds is kind of a general term because there’s so many different kinds of them. So, I want to take a minute just to about some of the different varieties of pumpkin seeds and the origins they come from. So, a little bit later on, Gino will tell you more about Lady Nail pumpkin seeds as as he’s the expert on these, But some of the other types of pumpkin seeds include snow white pumpkin seeds, and these are an in shell seed that are much larger in size, generally used for snacking applications or even used in the bird food too, birds like the snow white pumpkin seeds too. But you know, for us, they’re primarily used for roasting and seasoning, and I think they’re really nice for that because they have a big surface. Bigger the surface, the more area there is to add seasoning to, the more flavor you can get with every bite of them. So some of these are actually grown in the United States and Oregon. They do snow white Pumpkin seeds in Oregon.
But as you’ll learn with pumpkin seeds, the majority of them do come from China. China is the king of pumpkin. They do a very good job on pumpkin. They have for a long time as well. And these things are measured, by centimeters or by millimeters, depending on which way you lay down the pumpkin seed. But generally speaking, you’ll see them sized anywhere from a size 8 to a size 13, with 8 being the smallest and 13 being an absolute behemoth of a pumpkin seed. The most popular size that we see in the U. S. is a size eleven. That’s the most common you’ll see for a Snow White pumpkin seed.
The next, variety of pumpkin seeds, which I think is the most popular and what we sell the most of is the shine skinned pumpkin kernels. And they’re just that, they’re a kernel. They grow inside a shell, the shell is removed leaving the kernel, and they’re referred to as shine skin because of their shiny appearance. So they’re kind of shiny and green when you look at them. Smirk’s, we work with 3 different grades of them. There’s an A grade, there’s an A plus grade, and there’s a double A grade.
Double A is the top quality. It’s the one that we emphasize most for people who are doing a straight retail pack, where it’s going right into retail packaging. We also like to use double A’s more for roasting as well, because they roast really nice and they’re uniform in color. We’ll bounce back to an A grade. A grade is more of a variance in color, maybe instead of being a nice green, they’re a little lighter in green color. And A grade is primarily for us is for people who are using it as an ingredient where there’s being coating done. So if you think about a granola, you’re covering it in oil, you’re covering it in sugar, you’re covering it in cinnamon, you’re adding it with things, and you’re baking it, so the appearance isn’t really as important it is when you’re doing a straight pack of it. So a lot of our granola customers, our cereal customers, bar customers, they like the A grade. Also for the food applications, a lot of them use A grade as well too.
And then the A plus is just a mixture of the 2. So generally, it’s somewhere between 20 – 30% A grade and 70 to 80% double A grade. And what it does is just take advantage of The little bit less cost that an A grade is, but still the quality of the double A and puts them together. So this really happened when the tariff started from China when they added the 25% tariff on to help try to keep the cost down on the pumpkin seed a little bit, because 25% is a lot. So, You’ll see people use those still for retail packs. You’ll see them use them for roasting as well. And so that’s just another option out there that generally is just a few cents cheaper than what the double A is and just a few cents more expensive than what the A grade is.
Again, China is the main producer of shine skinned pumpkin seeds. There is very small production, mostly for conventional of these out of Oregon. And then we’ve actually started to see some organic production of Shine Skin Seeds from Mexico as well with a small production. Generally a little bit more expensive than what the Chinese product is. The other kind of pumpkin kernel is what we call a GWS, which stands for grown without shell. So, GWS pumpkins are another green kernel much like Shine Skin, with the difference being that they’re grown inside the pumpkin without a shell on them. These are not as popular in the US, but they’re very popular in Europe. You’ll really in Europe see them on top of all the baked breads when they add sunflowers and pumpkin seeds on top. They’re very popular for that, And the primary region for growing the GWS is again China.
But, however, Austria has been growing these for a very long time too. They’re referred to as Styrian pumpkin kernels from Austria. So if you ever hear the word Styrian pumpkin kernels, that is the variety that they grow in Austria. And generally speaking, the price for the Styrian is not that far off from the Chinese prices. Sometimes it can even be a little bit better, both from the GWS or if you use them interchangeably with a Shine Skin on a conventional basis. So the conventional ones could be very similar in pricing depending on the year. On the organic side, they’re always a little bit more expensive than the Chinese ones, but for those who are trying to find an item that is not from, China, that’s a good one to look at.
Funny story here at Smirk’s. Back in the day when we didn’t know what we were doing, sometime around 2011, we went ahead and ordered a container of pumpkin kernels. We brought them in. They were GWS. We had no what a GWS versus a Shine Skin was and we learned very quickly that all of our customers use Shine Skins, not GWSs. So we got scolded quickly in the very beginning when we were learning about pumpkin a long time ago so please don’t make the same mistakes we did. Our team is here to help you. Gino is here to help you. Someone will help you.
Make sure you know which pumpkin seed you’re buying, so. And then also in recent years, we’ve seen more pumpkin production going on inside the United States. As I’d mentioned before, Oregon. Also, now there’s some cool stuff happening in Illinois, and there’s some farms out there and some processing that are starting to do some different pumpkin kernels there too, and they’re slowly increasing their capacity, so that’s something we’re watching closely as people do want to buy more stuff from the US, especially pumpkin seeds have been hard to find. I know you sell various pumpkin products, Gino, from lady nails to pepitas to Snow White, in shell pumpkin. I’m curious what trends and applications you’re seeing these days with pumpkin seeds.
Gino Hartounian: Donny, great rundown. Definitely a lot more than I was going to mention. That is a lot of good stuff. And like you said, there are a lot of the varieties. GWS, Shine Skin, or also, it’s called Pepitas as well. I’m sure some people have heard it that being called pepitas instead of shine skin, and then Snow White then Lady Nail. They all have different varieties of use. And pepitas, because it’s without the shell, it’s typically the easiest to use in the most applications, from trail mixes, obviously, snack bars, granolas, yogurt.
Recently, acai bowls a lot, and it’s always been a common salad topper. You could also eat it simply just, roasted and salted or roasted with flavor. A lot of people are doing flavored pepitas recently, and it’s a great snack, and it’s super healthy. With all the new health trends going on, pumpkin seeds have really taken off, and they’ve gained a lot of popularity in the last few several years, I would say. But, yeah, like you stated, the pepitas, 3 different grades, eat it raw or roasted with the kernel, has many different applications. The Snow White, it’s, like you said, it still has the shell. And, typically, it’s meant to be cracked out of shell and consumed like that. And then our favorite here at Mixed Nuts is the Lady Nail variety, which comes out of Bulgaria.
It’s a much more specialty item, much more unique. It’s a much smaller crop. And it’s called lady nail because, hopefully, this is this doesn’t sound, unappealing, but it’s shaped long like a lady’s fingernail, and and the fact that it’s long and skinny and kinda sharp at the end. And what makes this variety different is that the shell is very, very, very thin. So, it can be consumed with or without the shell. The shell adds a level of crunch to The flavor of the Lady Nail pumpkin, it is a big source of fiber and protein in that variety of pumpkin. So, like I said, it’s been gaining a lot of popularity recently. In the last 2 to 3 years, we have become the largest importer of this item in the United States and and we absolutely love it. So I don’t know, Donny, is Smirk’s doing any business with the lady nail pumpkin at the moment?
Donny Edson: We do a little bit of lady nail pumpkin seeds raw that we sell to some customers that roast them in different ways on the East Coast, actually, so, Yeah. We haven’t gotten into the roasted application of them yet, and funny enough, Gino, when we were planning out the podcast a few days ago, and I told you that I like to eat Snow White’s, shell and all, and you laughed at me because you said you’re not supposed to do that, I should be buying lady nails and eating those shell and all, but I don’t know. I still like the shells on the Snow White’s too, so I know people eat them different ways. So we found that pretty funny though.
Gino Hartounian: I mean, whatever you like, Donny, whatever you like, but I highly recommend the thinner shell, on the lady nail might be a little bit tastier, but that’s just personal preference. So, you do you.
Donny Edson: Yeah. I’ll I’ll try them out always. So yeah. I know we carved some jack o’-lanterns yesterday, so we have some pumpkin seeds waiting to roast at our house right now with my daughters. So, very exciting times. They also want to plant them and see what happens. So, Well, I’ll talk a little bit from my side what I’ve seen with the pumpkin over the years. So, we’ve seen it used several different ways.
I’m gonna focus mostly on the Shine Skin kernels because that’s the biggest item for Smirk’s, one of the items that we we import 1,000,000 of pounds of here. So, some of the important notes, you know, on the spectrum of pricing compared to other nuts and seeds, pumpkins are generally more expensive than sunflowers and peanuts when considering it for a trail mix. However, They’re usually less than other items depending on the year. Obviously, we all know what’s going on with walnuts and almonds right now. Those things are pretty cheap. So the pumpkins fall right in line with those right now from a price standpoint, but traditionally, they’re less expensive than those ones are, and traditionally, they’re less expensive than cashews are as well too. But of course, pumpkin is an allergen free ingredient. So, if you’re working on an allergen free mix, then it’s great to use them for that.
Pumpkins are really versatile, especially shine skins, Snow White, as we’ve mentioned from seasoning. The shine skins are really versatile. They’re very tough. They they handle seasoning well. They handle roasting well. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of success with companies that make a Straight packed pumpkin seed item that has some value add of some variety to it, whether it be simply dry roasted and salted or sprouted and salted or even coated with some kind of a slurry and then baked. I’ve seen some cool ones where, you know, you make a slurry with cocoa powder and seasonings in there, and you bake it on there, and it just sticks to the pumpkin, and it’s just a great flavor as well. So all of those have been great items over the year, but in addition to straight packs, we sell pumpkin seeds for granolas, cereals, bars, mixes for breads and salad toppers. The possibilities are pretty endless on these.
And some of the cool innovations we’ve seen more recently are pumpkin protein powder. This is simply made by removing the pumpkin oil from the kernels, which concentrates the protein level of the powder and it’s milled down into something that you can work with. Pumpkin seed butter is also one that I think still has so much room to grow. Pumpkin seed butter is really a blank canvas for flavors to be added into. And there’s a nice balance of fat in pumpkin, so it makes a creamy product that’s just starting to be used as an ingredient. So I do think from an innovation side, if you’re listening to this and you really like tinkering around with stuff, making pumpkin seed butter and seeing what you can do with it, making dressings out of it, using it inside of granolas to see how it coats and bakes. I just think pumpkin seed butter is a really cool item. And again, it’s very versatile, allergen free, and just something I think has a lot of room to grow. So, a couple of things that my family does at home is we like to use pumpkin seeds on top of vegetables.
So, what we do is just take raw pumpkin seeds and put them inside of a dry pan, we turn the heat on. We just keep stirring them until they’re lightly toasted. And as you toast them, you’ll start to see the oil come through on the pumpkin seeds a little bit and they’ll get a little shiny, and that’s how you know they’re done, or they’ll start to take on a little color. So we like to put them on top of vegetables or savory dishes. We like to put them on pastas. We like to put them on soup. Another favorite in my family is we make a Mexican pesto with pumpkin seeds. So rather than pine nuts and basil, what we do is we toast the seeds, and we add them in a food processor with olive oil or avocado oil, cilantro, and cojita cheese. And then if you like a little spice, we throw some jalapeno in there as well. And so this makes a really cool pesto to put on top of tacos or really any kind of Mexican food. So that’s another favorite that we have in our house as well.
Gino Hartounian: That sounds really good. I’ve never heard of that, but
Donny Edson: Try it out.
Gino Hartounian: Yeah. It sounds really good. Awesome.
Elisa Louis: I gotta say all this talk about pumpkin, how are you using it, it’s making me so hungry right now.
Donny Edson: Go eat some lunch, Elisa.
Elisa Louis: Anyways, let’s switch gears a little bit. It’s timely to be discussing pumpkin seeds in terms of the harvest since the harvest happens in the fall in China. So I’d love to get both of your takes on the pumpkin market and what you’re anticipating with this harvest. Donny, could we start with you?
Donny Edson: Yeah, absolutely. This is an important time to follow pumpkin seeds. Really, we start following pumpkin seeds in April when we start to get what the reports are for planting, and it’s in China, sometimes difficult to actually know what information you’re getting is true and accurate. So we try to get it from as many sources as we can, whether it be processors, traders, brokers, friends, whatever it is, we try to gather much information so that we can kind of see similarities in what we’re hearing. So then as you start to progress, the information does start to come together a little bit more and you have some ideas. So really what we generally watch for is what the planting is, what the carryover is from the year before, and then what’s happening at harvest time? So is harvest going well? Is harvest early? Is harvest late? Is there weather happening while harvest is going on? So all these things can really influence the market. And generally speaking, the one we follow the closest again is Shine Skins. So that’s kind of what I’m going to talk about first.
So this year with ShineSkins is kind of an interesting year. The crop is the exact same size or within the same size as it was for the harvest in 2022. But a couple of keynotes that we followed this year. 1st off, is that the carryover last year was substantially larger than it was this year. So I think this year’s carryover was maybe somewhere between 10 15% the size of where it was last year. So if you add the carryover to the expected yield, that’ll give you a total volume available. It’s smaller this year than it was last year. And a couple things that happened last year that I think are important to note are pumpkin seed prices are driven 1st and foremost by domestic consumption in China.
They consume a lot of pumpkin seeds there, and they consume them during celebration time. So whether it’s their autumn harvest festival time, their autumn fall festival that just happened the beginning of October, or if it’s the Chinese New Year that happens in January. When they get together, they eat a lot of seeds and nuts. So those are 2 things that can move the market really fast on pumpkin seeds, are those things. Last year for the 2022 crop, China was still on lockdown, so there was no festival in October. They were still on lockdown right up until the end of the Chinese New Year. That’s when they opened everything back up. So, it’s important to note that last year, even though the crop was the same size as this year, there wasn’t as much internal demand in China. So, for us, that makes us a little bit bullish on the market this year because the crop is the same size with a smaller carryover.
China is open for business again. They’re having their festival, so we think the domestic consumption can increase in China there. In addition to that, last year, many people may recall coming out of COVID, a lot of people had a lot of stuff in their warehouses still. So, with all that extra product in our warehouse, we weren’t as eager to buy stuff at harvest time, which kept the price pretty flat and level. And in Europe, I think it was even worse than it was the U. S. They were very slow to purchase in Europe. This year, everybody was ready for the harvest.
We needed product at harvest time and the harvest was late by about 3 weeks. So everything was late 3 weeks. So The supply of pumpkin seeds is not near what it was this time last year. So, when you add all those things together, Europe buying again, U. S. buying again, China open for business. Crop being the same size, but with a smaller carryover, thus makes us a little bit more bullish on the pumpkin seed market this year. And that pretty much pertains to the conventional market. That’s the main one that we’re watching.
The organic market is kind of its own thing, And what happens on the organic market is sometimes they plant a lot and sometimes they don’t. This year, they did not plant near as much organic product. And what happened at harvest time Was it rained? And so there was a lot of crop damage on the organic pumpkin seeds as well. So we’ve seen the prices of the organic pumpkin seeds go crazy, and we don’t see any reason why they’re going to drop. So on that side, again, think it’s a good time to cover on both conventional pumpkin, if you have it, and organic pumpkin as well because we think that that stuff will remain a little bit tight this year. And pumpkin’s wonky. I mean, Gino will tell you from China, I mean, you can see the price go Up $1,000 a metric ton in 2 weeks.
It’s just crazy how fast the price can drop, so or how fast the price can increase, so it never seems to drop as fast as it goes up From that side.
Now moving on to the snow white pumpkin seeds, very stable, crops around the same size as last year. There was no surge in demands last year. We haven’t seen the price move hardly at all on the on the Snow White pumpkin seeds, so we think that one’s gonna remain very stable, very easy to work with.
And then the last one I’ll talk about before I hand it over to Gino and Elisa is that, the Mexican pricing. So some of our customers have started to buy organic shine skinned pumpkin seeds from Mexico, and we had seen the prices higher 2 years ago. They came down a little bit last year but they are creeped back up again this year as well, so we’re seeing higher prices out of Mexico on the on the, new crop that’s going to be happening there too.
Elisa Louis: Awesome. Really helpful notes, Tony. Thank you so much. Gino, could you weigh in on the market as well? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the products that you know best.
Gino Hartounian: Yeah. Very good rundown, Donny. It was very thorough and very accurate to what I was I am seeing as well. The pumpkin seed market in general has been slowly taking up This year, so it makes sense that you guys are bullish. Prices have, depending on the variety, steady to increasing, we have seen as well, pepitas in the last, few weeks has just been inching upward every week, going up a little bit higher and higher. So and and there’s no relief in the near future as what people are saying. So we will see where things pan out and how that pivots and develops as time progresses. Snow White in shell still has remained very steady over the last month or so to its opening levels, but Lady Nail pumpkin has been very interesting this year.
As I had said earlier on in the podcast, it is a specialty item with a lot smaller crop than Pepitas or shine skin and snow white seeds. And for that reason, it’s a lot more volatile than these other seeds. And, also, it’s only mainly only grown in in Bulgaria. So for that reason, when anything happens to the crop, prices shoot up. So this is one of those years, the total available crop is what they say is about 40 to 50% less than what was assumed. So they’re not only have prices gone up tremendously, but it is very hard to secure raw material at this point in time. So it’s something that we will see Over the next month or 2, things are gonna change. It’s still early on.
Harvest was just started happening, so as more of the pumpkin comes into the factories and gets processed. We’ll see how the quality is, and hopefully, whatever is remaining of that crop is gonna be very good quality to kind of allow that price to relax a little bit. I’m hopeful, but signs are because that’s kinda my job, I gotta be hopeful in order to buy properly for the company, but or not, some may say. But, anyways, we’ll see what happens. It’s gonna be an interesting year for a lady nail, but, yeah, sadly, it does have high volatility because of how specialty and small of a crop it is.
Donny Edson: Man, good stuff, Gino. Thanks for sharing all that. And before we finish our conversation, let’s talk a little bit more about your business too and some of the stuff you guys are doing there and what’s on the horizon for you. I know you had some cool stuff you showed to us when we were out there in March visiting. Again, some of the things that I think it’s cool for listeners to think about is Mixed Nuts is really, really good at dry roasting product and putting it into different kind of packaging for you or doing blending of things. So whether it’s a dry roasted cashew, a dry roasted pine nut, a pumpkin, a peanut, any of these things. So if you’re looking for somebody who can help you with that or you’re looking for some different products, I do suggest that you check out Mixed Nuts because they’re a great partner to work on that side. So but tell us about anything new or new projects you have on the horizon right now, Gino.
Gino Hartounian: Thank you, Donny, for mentioning some of those things. As we’ve talked about through this whole podcast, pumpkin seeds is definitely a specialty of of ours, but it’s not everything we do. It’s maybe a quarter or less of our entire business. And like I said, since, the lady nail variety has been going so well for us, we’re kinda doubling down on that to present it to more customers and get it to more demographics because we truly believe it’s a fantastic product.
Outside of that, our custom roasting And flavoring capabilities, we do both dry and oil roasting, so it opens the availability of different options and stuff we could do for different customers. And I mentioned this earlier, Donny, I love when you guys come to me with new unique projects, like a slivered roasted almond or pistachio splits,you want it dry roasted. We specialize in that, and we’re able to because of the wide variety of packaging styles. Anything from 1 ounce single serve packs all the way up to 25 pound, we could pack it how ever our customers need.
So we’re definitely pushing that as well to get more into the food manufacturing and food service side of our industry, and, last but not least, we can never lose focus of kinda what our bread and butter is, which is selling to the retail customer. And we’ve launched and I think you saw this, Donny, but it’s right behind me, the Deluxe Mix, it’s a line of about 5 trail mixes up there. And it is a new take on trail mixes. Trail mixes have always been super cost friendly and uses a lot of fillers like peanuts and sunflowers, kernels, and stuff like that. So this is a brand new line, very unique with a bunch of unique ingredients. We’re trying to keep the additives to an all time low, and it’s a much higher price point. Not much higher, but it’s more quality for the product you’re getting. The nut sizes are larger, higher quality, so we’re stoked on that, and it’s just now hitting retail shelves. But, yeah, that’s everything we’re focusing on at the moment.
Elisa Louis: Wow. Good stuff, guys. Thanks for sharing your insights on pumpkin seed trends, applications in this season’s crop. And, Gino, we so appreciate you joining us today. It’s just been wonderful to hear your own personal story and where you’ve come from and and where you are now and the thriving business you’re helping shape at Mixed Nuts.
Donny Edson: Yeah. It’s always been a pleasure working with you, Gino, and, of course, Nick and Vic too. We appreciate the partnership between, Mixed Nuts and Smirk’s, and it’s been fun talking shop, talking about pumpkins. It’s been fun prepping for the podcast as well. I had a lot of fun with this one.
Gino Hartounian: Yeah.
Donny Edson: It’s been awesome to watch your family’s business continue to grow and everything you’re working on. I’m really excited to see what you get everybody into in the in the future. So, and again, we hope our listeners will think about Gino and his team when they’re looking for a vertically integrated, West Coast partner for all these different items. Gino and the amazing Mixed Nuts team can be reached through their website at mixednutsinc.com, or just Google Mixed Nuts.
Gino Hartounian: Thank you, guys. I really appreciate the support. You guys have been amazing with everything that we do together, and this has been an awesome opportunity. Honored to be a part of it. I love how Smirk’s is kinda modernizing our industry a little bit and bringing in these these new things and tools for customers, consumers, and people in our industry to kinda follow along with and just learn more. So I’m super happy to be a part of it. And again, we love working with you guys and you guys are amazing. The whole team is amazing.
So thank you guys, I appreciate it.
Elisa Louis: And thanks again. Well, hey, that wraps up another fantastic episode of Get the Scoop with Smirk’s podcast. Thanks for tuning in. And if you have any questions or comments about our podcast, please reach out to us at whatsnew@smirks.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks so much. Take care.
Pumpkin Seeds Product Feature
Elisa Louis: Hello, and welcome to Get the Scoop with Smirk’s episode 8, product feature. For today’s product feature, we’ll do a deep dive into pumpkin seeds. Some scientists believe that pumpkins originated at least 7000 years ago, having been grown by indigenous peoples in Mexico and Central America. Later, native Americans made pumpkins a staple in their diet using all parts of the pumpkin, including the seeds. American colonists embraced the pumpkin and started using it to make pies, soups, and other dishes. And as we know, pumpkin was a key ingredient associated with Thanksgiving dishes.
Donny Edson: Man, I like to think about it as pumpkin pie now. This is fantastic. Thank you, Elisa. But pumpkin does have an interesting history. If we trace the movement of the plant pumpkin in other parts of the world, it was introduced to China in the 16th century and spread widely throughout the provinces during the Ming Dynasty. Pumpkin also came to Europe in the 16th century as well.
Elisa Louis: Hey, Donny, since we associate pumpkin with the fall, not just Thanksgiving, but Halloween, do you know where the tradition of carving jack o’-lanterns came from?
Donny Edson: I heard that it came from Irish immigrants, but what was the backstory?
Elisa Louis: Yeah. In the 19th century, Irish immigrants carried on a tradition from their Celtic folklore. To ward off evil spirits and protect their homes, they would carve turnips or other root vegetables and place a Candle inside to create a lantern. Immigrants to America found that pumpkins were abundant, so they started carving pumpkins and placing them on their home’s doorsteps.
Donny Edson: I mean, I’ll throw in that I think maybe it also could have came from having kids who constantly poke at you to carve a pumpkin as well. So I don’t see that in the history, but I know that that happened to me last night. So yeah. History has certainly shaped our perceptions, and today, the popularity of pumpkin products is undeniable. We could talk at length about the various pumpkin flavored coffees and foods, but today we’re gonna focus on the pumpkin seed market.
In 2022, the US market for pumpkin seeds was valued at $744,000,000, and that number is expected to grow at a pace of 13.4% from 2023 to 2029. These numbers are courtesy of Maximize market research. Of note, this does also include pumpkin seed derivatives, such as pumpkin seed oils and powders.
Elisa Louis: Why do you think pumpkin seed consumption is on the rise, Donny?
Donny Edson: Well, to start with, nutritionally speaking, pumpkin seeds are seen as a product that is beneficial as they are rich in protein, fiber, and vitamins, and minerals such as zinc and magnesium. It also includes omega 3 fatty acids.
Elisa Louis: What else is driving the popularity of pumpkin seeds?
Donny Edson: Pumpkin seeds are used in so many different ways in both savory and sweet products and applications. Pumpkin seeds are excellent for snacking, so you’ll find them sold in straight packs, plain, or roasted and salted and flavored. Pumpkin seeds make a great addition to trail mixes, and they’re being included as an ingredient in energy bars and granola bars. Pumpkin seeds are added to granolas and other cereals as well. On the savory side, they’re used as a salad and soup toppers and included in grain bowls. Blending them into dips and spreads is another pumpkin seed application. They’re ground up and used to make pesto in lieu of more expensive pine nuts, for example. Pumpkin seeds complement different cheeses, so they’re added to charcuterie platters as well.
On the baking side, pumpkin seeds are added atop muffins, breads, crackers, and scones. You’ll also find pumpkin seeds atop yogurt and added into chocolate bark and other chocolate treats. Pumpkin seeds are used to add an extra crunch, add protein, And a nutty, slightly earthy flavor with hints of sweetness.
Elisa Louis: What are some of the popular pumpkin seed derivatives you’re seeing these days?
Donny Edson: With a boom in plant based protein, pumpkin seed protein is an ingredient you’ll find in smoothies and shakes, for examples. You’ll find pumpkin seed oil in dressings, dipping oils, and marinades. It’s also used in skincare products such as lotions and creams. As an alternative to nut butters, pumpkin seed butter is used as a spread and dipping sauces could be added to oatmeal and in baking.
Elisa Louis: What are the various pumpkin seed specifications that Smirk’s is offering?
Donny Edson: Smirk’s typically offers a range of Shine Skin pumpkin seeds, both for contracted customers and for spot buys. We inventory Shine Skinned Pumpkin Seeds that have been pasteurized in both an organic conventional and in A Grade and AA Grades from China. Incidentally, China is the largest producer, producing over 1/3 of the world’s pumpkin seeds. We also offer raw Shine Skin products from Mexico. Besides the difference in origins, it’s important to note that the raw product will need to undergo some type of sterilization process to make the product ready to eat. And what I mean by ready to eat is that the product has gone through a validated kill step to reduce the pathogens. As for the grades, the double A’s are more uniform in size and color. If the visual aspect is not critical, we recommend the grade a as they are more cost effective.
Elisa Louis: What if customers are looking for other specifications of pumpkin seeds, Donny?
Donny Edson: Well, there are different ones. Styrian pumpkin seeds from Austria, for example, are an item we can offer to customers. Mostly on a special order basis, and this holds true for Snow White pumpkin seeds from China and Lady Nail seeds from Bulgaria.
Elisa Louis: What are the differences between shine skin pumpkin seeds as opposed to other varieties such as Snow White’s, Styrian pumpkin, and lady nails?
Donny Edson: Well, shine skin are a pumpkin seed that are grown with a shell and have to be taken out of the shell or be hold in order to have the kernel. Snow white seeds have an edible outer shell, and as the name indicates, they are whitish in color. Styrian are a whole less pumpkin seed, so they’re grown without a shell. So they grow inside the pumpkin seed without any shell on them at all. It can also be called a GWS or grown without shell, but they have a distinctively darker green color. Lady nail pumpkin seeds are beige in color and have a long narrow shape. They get their name from the appearance of a woman’s fingernail.
Elisa Louis: What is the seasonality of pumpkin seeds and when is the best time to contract?
Donny Edson: Typically, the season starts around September and goes through November. Products from the new harvest normally start ship in early October, sometimes in late September. This year, it’s running about 2 weeks late in shipping. We try to keep pumpkin seed stock on hand for spot buys, but we usually contracting your needs when possible to ensure a steady supply. In terms of contract dealing, that generally starts sometime around August to September, And sometimes it goes into October.
Elisa Louis: Hey, Donny, I just wanna clear one thing up because this question comes up every now and then. What is the difference between a Pumpkin seed and pepitas?
Donny Edson: Well, for the most part, these terms are fairly interchangeable. Both terms Describe pumpkin seeds that come from certain varieties of pumpkins or squash, and both have seeds that are without a hard outer shell. A whole less pumpkin seed refers to the absence of a shell, so the shell can be easily eaten. A pepita is derived from the Spanish word little seed. In English, it’s commonly used to refer to the green edible seed found in certain types of pumpkins or squash. Pepitas are essentially the inner part of the pumpkin seed without the hard shell.
Elisa Louis: Well, that was good stuff. That wraps up our product feature segment on pumpkin seeds. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to us by email at whatsnew@smirks.com. Thanks for tuning in.
Nick Erker: So that’s it for this episode of Get the Scoop with Smirks podcast, where we bring you the latest market reports, insights into bulk ingredients, and their origins, as well as in-depth product information. So, if you have any questions, or feedback, or just want a sample to taste for yourself, visit the smirks.com website or email us at whatsnew@smirks.com. Never miss a future episode. Be sure to hit the subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in.