Thyolonut Company

The Company Production Agriculture Standards CSR Contact Us

Thyolo Nut Company grows and processes high quality macadamia nuts on its estate, 50 kilometres from Malawi 's commercial capital Blantyre.

Malawi Macadamia nuts are well known for their quality and high oil content and those of Thyolo Nut Company are no exception.

In May 2008, the South African Bureau of Standards registered Thyolo Nut Company as an organisation meeting the requirements of the Bureau's standard, SANS 10330:2007 for a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point System (HACCP) in respect of the receiving, processing, packing, supply and export of macadamia nuts. This is the buyer's guarantee of Thyolo Nut's adherence to HACCP fundamentals that ensure a quality product that is safe to use.

The nuts from Thyolo Nut Company's orchards

are processed in the company's nut cracking facility, the most modern in Malawi, to produce this quality product.

Thyolo Nut Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of London based PGI Group Ltd. The holding company has other agribusiness interests in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where it grows, processes and exports top quality tea, macadamia nuts, cut flowers and vegetables.

Thyolo Nut Company produces 2,500 tonnes of nut in husk on 850 hectares of macadamia orchard. From this, together with additional crop from surrounding estates, 350 tonnes of edible kernel are produced and exported to all parts of the world. Nuts are sold for direct consumption by the end user as well as for use in baking and confectionary.

The company first planted macadamia trees in the 1970's. In 1990, development of large orchards began and these will continue to produce an increasing crop to 2015 and beyond as the trees mature.

Until 2006 these nuts were exported in their shells for further processing. In 2007 Thyolo Nut built and commissioned a nut cracking facility to process the nut in shell into saleable, edible kernel. This has saved Malawi scarce foreign currency and created 130 jobs, previously performed offshore. By exporting only the kernel, carbon emissions from road and sea transport have reduced by 70%.

Factory production and orchard nut handling capacity is presently being upgraded and increased to process the larger crop and reduce the time from tree to processed product, thereby improving quality.