Macnut Macadamia Farm and Macnut Cafe NZ

The Farm

Macnut Macadamia Farm NZ is a Farm Shop located at the address 914 South Head Road, South Head 0874. It is New Zealand’s finest macadamia nut orchard.

There is a sharp turn from the rural road to the entrance of the farm so if you are approaching the farm from the south, you should be extra careful.

Sharp road turn

You first arrive at the car park area along the road.

Carpark

At the carpark there is a huge pile of nut shells that you can step through and enjoy viewing.

Pile of nut shells

There are also some sample macadamia nut trees growing nearby.

Macadamia Larvae

Then you can go explore the macadamia orchards or stay at a café.

Macnut Cafe

Among food restaurants here is macnut cafe. You can stay at a macnut café, buy some macadamia nuts and enjoy the view onto the fields and the pond named Te Korowai-o-Te-Tonga Peninsula.

Macnut cafe serves a number of innovative foods. It has got covered verandahs and a paved terrace where you can sit and enjoy the beautiful views over lakes and orchard. It is also possible to buy picnic basket lunches to take them to the lake.

The food served includes chef's special, salad and gourmet burgers, macadamia cakes, scones, cookies and MacNut Ice-cream. Among drinks here are nice coffees and iced drinks.

Macadamia Nuts

The macadamia nuts come in 3 types: shelled nuts, nuts with shells removed and unshelled nuts covered with chocolate, salted nuts with shells removed, etc. When we came here we most commonly bought chocolate nuts.

Macadamia nuts first come in special larvae shell:

When the larvae is removed, you get the following shelled nuts:

These shelled nuts are sold in packs or by weight:

The unshelled nut looks white and fatty. It is very soft and also sold in packs:

When the unshelled nut is covered with chocolate, one gets the following chocolate nuts:

As you can see, there are a range of macadamia nut products available for sale at macnut cafe. The prices are as follows:

• Hickory Smoked Macadamia 400g - $25

• Hickory smoked Macadamia Nuts 120g - $10

• Dark Chocolate Macadamia 400g - $25

• Milk Chocolate Macadamia Nuts 120g - $10

• Milk Chocolate Macadamia 400g - $25

• Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nuts 120g = $10

• Salted Macadamia 400g - $25

• Nuts in Shell - $8 per pack

Apart from nuts, you can also buy here beauty products such as Hand and Body Lotion, Bath and Shower Gel and Hand Wash. Gifts such as Macadamia Gourmet Oil and Handle Boxes. You could buy nut crackers or body butter hand and body cream.

Overall, macadamias are extremely healthy food, have a number of unique properties and uses.

Macadamia Processing is a complex process. MacNut farm is not just a macadamia orchard but also the largest macadamia processing facility. The processing operation is broken down into 4 stages:

• Dehusking. Once the nuts are picked, the dehusker rips the tough outer larvae shell (hust) from the nut. The brown nut emerges afterwards, qhich is very moist.

• Drying. To allow the nut to be cracked, it must be dried. For drying, the nuts are placed into a green house where the moist decreases to less than 10% then the nuts are moved to a heated container with temperatures between 40 - 50 deg Celsius for a week to reduce the moisture to 3%.

• Cracking. The nuts are then put into a cracker hopper.

The cracker and sorting operations are run 6 hrs a day, 5 days a week and can process 500 kg of kernel each day.

For more information refer to Macadamia Processing - MacNut Farms - New Zealand's Finest Macadamia Orchard.