Hammons Products partners with Missouri Enterprise

The not-for-profit business assistance center is teaming up with Stockton-based black-walnut processor Hammons Products. The purpose: re-examine Hammons’ cleaning and hulling methods and equipment in an attempt to improve efficiency and determine if there is a faster or more efficient way to remove that pesky hull.

Walnuts are big business in Missouri; Hammons collected some 35 million pounds of nuts in 2005 at 250 locations in 16 states, and 65 percent of that yield came from Missouri.

Brian Hammons, president of Hammons Products, said that the area around Springfield has the highest concentration of harvested black walnuts anywhere in the world.

But the black walnut is a hard nut to crack – and that’s where Missouri Enterprise enters the Hammons picture.

“When we buy the nuts, we take the hull off, but there’s a little bit of hull material that’s very hard to remove, and we need to remove that before we can actually shell them,” Hammons said. “We’ve got equipment for that, but we’re looking for possible alternative methods that we hadn’t thought of before.”

That attitude is one reason why Hammons is the largest black walnut processor in the world, according to Missouri Enterprise Senior Vice President Harold Zinn.

“They’re a very progressive company,” Zinn said. “They’re the largest in the world in their field, but they realize they have to continually improve and look at ways to do things better, increase yields, and this is part of that process – finding equipment that can improve their process.”

Missouri Enterprise – which counts manufacturing companies as at least 60 percent of its client list – receives federal and state funding along with an hourly fee from the companies it serves.

Hammons said his company, which employs about 90 full-time employees plus 20 during the peak fall harvest season, has paid a few thousand dollars so far, though he’s not sure how much the total cost will be when the process is completed.

He is sure of one thing, though: using Missouri Enterprise services is “more cost-effective than hiring our own professional engineer to be on staff.

“They’ve brought some good ideas forward, although nothing has worked better so far,” he added. “But you have to cover all your bases. The system we’re presently using, we know we need to improve on.”[[In-content Ad]]