PALM KERNEL NUT

الوصف

Palm kernel nut is a by-product from the milling of palm oil and can be sourced from oil palm plantation scattered in the rain forest region in southern Nigeria. The nuts can be sourced bit by bit from farmers after extracting the oil from the fruits in villages or from palm oil producing companies. The product is usually available in large quantity during raining season from May to September and extends to December.

It is important at this point to note that in the production of palm kernel nuts, we have the hand and machine cracked. The hand cracked palm kernel nuts are those gotten by the use of hand while the machine cracked is that gotten from the use of machine in the cracking process.

Though buyers usually prefer the hand cracked because the FFA {Free Fatty Acid} content is usually low due to less breakage of the nuts but cannot depend only on it due to less output. Machine cracked with the advantage of more output gives high FFA content which can be controlled by reducing the breakage of nuts. The machine in question has an efficiency of *0%, that is, if **0 KG of palm kernel {unshelled} is feed into the machine, *0% of the palm kernel nut would not be broken.

The machine we used for the production of palm kernel nuts are two types, the ones that can crack and separate the nuts from the shell and the other that does not separate the nuts from the cracked shell.