We show a lot of appreciation for our agriculture around here, and everyone knows fall means fresh apples and pumpkins. But there’s another fall crop thriving in the PNW that’s delicious, nutritious, and ready for your holiday recipes: hazelnuts!
NUTTY NORTHWEST
Hazel trees (which are more like shrubs) pollinate in winter, flower and grow throughout spring and summer, and are ready for harvest in September and October, falling right off the bow. Turkey is the biggest producer of hazelnuts, accounting for around 60% of the world’s supply. The U.S. is fourth, and 99% of that comes from Oregon.
Photograph by Kristen Boehm
In a 2022 census, there were 208 hazelnut farms in Washington state, totalling nearly 1,350 acres of land. Accounting for around 200 of those acres are Whatcom County’s Holmquist Hazelnut Orchards and Washington Hazelnut. In Skagit, Nookachamps Farms produces organic hazelnuts, corn, grass, and milk. Even South Fork Farms, known for their alpacas, gets in on the tree nut game with organic walnuts. Who knew?
HOLMQUIST HAZELNUT ORCHARDS
Brian Holmquist, director of operations at Holmquist Hazelnut Orchards, knows a lot about hazelnuts. After all, he’s got over a century of generational knowledge behind him.
“Holmquist Hazelnuts was the very first farm in Washington state to have planted a hazelnut orchard. That was in 1916,” says Brian. “We are the original hazelnut farm for the state of Washington.”
Brian Holmquist | Photograph by Kristen Boehm
Brian’s great-great-grandfather, John Victor Holmquist, planted it. After helping his own father get started farming in Mount Vernon, John moved to Judson Lake, near Lynden, where the Holmquist family farm still operates today. Over the generations, they grew various crops and dairied for 75 years. Eventually, the Holmquists decided to start processing their own nuts rather than sending them to Oregon processors, and to focus entirely on hazelnuts. Nowadays, Holmquist is still family-owned and -operated, a big name with a deceptively small crew.
“We grow, we harvest, we process… and we’re doing 90% of our own marketing. And there’s only three of us,” says Brian, who runs the farm with his brother Richard Holmquist and their 88-year-old father, Gerald Holmquist. Brian’s 10-year-old granddaughter, whom he’s raising, is technically the 7th generation of Holmquist farmers, but they’ve yet to give her an official title.
Photograph by Kristen Boehm
Holmquist was originally known for their DuChilly hazelnuts, which are oblong, sweet, and rare. Unfortunately, they’re also less hardy than others, and the original Holmquist orchards were lost to Eastern Filbert Blight. Faced with losing their DuChillys, the Holmquists decided to plant Jeffersons, which Brian describes as the best variety viable for commercial growing.
“The folks that are really paying attention will buy from us because they know we have something that’s different. Not different like it used to be, which still makes me wanna cry,” he says, wryly, “but they are different and they are still better.”
Photograph by Kristen Boehm
After washing and drying, the nuts are sold raw, roasted and salted, chocolate-coated, and candied, in delicious flavors like Butter Toffee and Coffee Glazed. They also sell cold-pressed, unrefined hazelnut oil, a gourmet oil that’s good for both your cooking and your health. It carries a rich, nutty flavor and aroma, plus all the omegas, vitamins, and healthy fats of hazelnuts. Lynden, holmquisthazelnuts.com
WASHINGTON HAZELNUT
Headquartered in Everson is Washington Hazelnut, another family-run operation with farming going back for generations. Jon De Lange and his parents, Martin and Doreen De Lange, planted their first hazelnut orchard in 2015.
Jon De Lange | Photograph by Kristen Boehm
At that time, there was a growing interest in hazelnuts in Washington. Compared to berries and dairy, they’re a relatively low-labor and shelf-stable product that fetches good prices—or they did, until about five years ago. The COVID Pandemic hit, and then the worldwide hazelnut market dipped thanks to things like low demand, high supply, and economic upheaval. Thankfully, the prices have since started climbing back up.
“The first year I shipped to Oregon, I got 80 cents [per pound]. It went down to like 47 cents, then to 50 cents,” says Jon. “Last year was better, it was a dollar-eight. … and then this year, there was a big freeze in Turkey.… What happens there controls the price for the whole rest of the world.”
Photograph by Kristen Boehm
Jon’s brother Marty De Lange joined Washington Hazelnut in 2021, and the family now cares for 17,000 trees across 4 orchards and 100 acres in Whatcom County. They grow mainly Yamhill, Wepster, and PollyO.
“Yamhill has a really good flavor and a really high oil content,” says Jon, who adds that the latter makes for a savory and rich flavor.
Photograph by Kristen Boehm
Washington Hazelnut turned to processing part of their own crop in 2023 as a way to off-put the low buying price from Oregon processors. Jon, who has always been mechanically-minded, created or repurposed most of their processing equipment from farm machines he bought secondhand. In their commercial kitchen, Jon developed recipes for their chocolate-covered and candied hazelnuts and hazelnut spreads, with the help of family and friends (every chef needs test-tasters). He says some of his best customers, though, are squirrel-lovers from the East coast, who buy bulk hazelnuts in-shell to treat their backyard friends. Everson, washingtonhazelnutllc.com
