Asheville Nuttery: Foraged Food Coop Initiative

A North Carolina nut-processing cooperative is making native nuts more accessible to the community and setting the stage for collective nut foraging across the country.

By Mari Jyväsjärvi Stuart
Published on September 16, 2022
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by Justin Holt
Community members sort, weigh, and package nuts dropped off by foragers.

Asheville Nuttery, a food coop initiative in North Carolina, provides a place for community members to trade in foraged nuts for profit or a share of processed nuts, oil, or flour.

Imagine if the trees lining your neighborhood streets provided delicious food, free for the taking. Now, consider if that food was versatile to use and rich in unsaturated fats, fiber, and minerals. Lastly, think if that food required minimal human input, fertilizers, or pesticides to grow, and it created wildlife habitat, reduced erosion, and sequestered carbon.

If you live in temperate North America, that food is likely already available in the form of native acorns and other nuts. In fact, there’s a bounty growing all around us in the form of native North American nut trees, largely untapped by humans. But if you’ve ever processed nuts — cracking, dehulling, leaching, and grinding — you know it’s an arduous process that can deter many from taking advantage of this free food source. That’s why Asheville Nuttery, an innovative nut foragers collective in Asheville, North Carolina — where I live — is removing the obstacles that keep us from incorporating local nuts into our diets.

A Nut-Processing Food Coop Initiative

If there’s a pun with “nuts” in it, it’s been heard at Asheville Nuttery. But they don’t just crack jokes there. The cooperatively owned nut depot is a pioneering facility for processing local, collectively foraged wild nuts.

Historically, nuts were a staple food for Native Americans and in many parts of Europe and Asia. Some of today’s oak and pecan groves date back to when people regularly harvested from those trees for their sustenance. In the past two centuries, however, annual grains have dominated our diets and made nut-based foods a rare curiosity.

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