RAW Peruvian Pecan Halves

Bigger, fatter, and sweeter than any other pecans on the market, these one-of-a-kind nuts are grown organically on a family farm in a pristine Peruvian valley. Compared to the smoky, sometimes bitter taste of ordinary Pecans, our melt-in-your-mouth beauties are like fluffy vanilla pancakes. Each nut is hand-cracked, to protect its delicate flavors from the damaging heat caused by ordinary cracking machines.
pecan halves
Grown with innovative organic farming methodologies, fed with pure Andean spring water and harvested at the peak of ripeness, our sweet, nourishing pecans are a delicious source of easily-digested protein, cell-protecting antioxidants, and cholesterol-lowering sterols. They’re also rich with other important nutrients—heart-healthy monounsaturated oils, vitamin E, trace minerals, and several B vitamins.

Their sweet, buttery consistency makes them a fantastic snack or hiking food and, of course, they elevate the ordinary Pecan Pie to extraordinary heights.  

The only thing more amazing than these one-of-a-kind nuts is the land where they grow. Our farming partner Stefan and his family have transformed a barren desert into a lush, biodiverse, organic oasis employing over 140 local villagers. After the 2007 Peruvian earthquake, we raised funds to help them rebuild their homes.

So what are you waiting for? Without a doubt, these are the biggest, most buttery Pecans you will ever taste. Let the snacking begin!  

PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE PECANS HAVE A SLIGHT BITTER AFTERTASTE WHICH IS NORMAL FOR PECANS COMING FROM THIS REGION OF PERU.


Our Organic Pecans (Carya illinoinensis wangenh) of the Stuart variety are grown in the Topará Valley, Chincha, located approximately 200 Km south of Lima, Peru. The plantations are over 30 years old and have been skillfully managed by the Bederski family who practice only strict organic and environmentally sound farming methods. The organic pecans are manually harvested, classified, and transported to an adjacent processing facility. Then the pecans are hand cleaned, cracked, and shelled under a rigorous quality control program. The pecans are carefully selected, vacuum packed and stored in refrigeration. The production process includes the use of few machines; over 140 people from the surrounding villages are employed.
Essential Living Foods Organic Mammoth Pecans

Whether you love Pecans or not, trying Essential Living Foods’s Organic Mammoth Pecan Halves will forever change your perspective on this ancient nut. That’s because the Pecans Essential Living Foods imports each year are among the largest, freshest, sweetest Pecans in the entire world.

This is no exaggeration. Despite having many tons available, Essential Living Foods sells out of this amazing nut many months in advance—every single year.

Buyers from some of the largest natural foods distributors in the country literally compete for their share of this product. High-end, award winning chocolate manufacturers contract as much as they can to add to their bars. Health cafes and food manufacturers find it difficult to use Pecans from any other source after using Essential Living Foods’s Pecans.
Why This Pecan Is Unlike Any Other You’ve Tried

What makes them so special? There are several explanations. First, the trees used are a very rare and native variety known for its incredible size and sweet flavor. The Bederski family spent many years selecting the ideal variety to thrive in the Topara Valley and ultimately struck gold when they discovered this one.

In addition, incredible care is taken in processing the nuts. Every pecan is manually harvested and then transported to a nearby processing facility. There, each and every Pecan is hand-cleaned, cracked, and shelled under a rigorous quality control program. The pecans are carefully selected, vacuum packed and stored in refrigeration.

The production process includes the use of few machines; over 80 people from the surrounding villages are employed. Organic Certification is administrated by SKAL in Lima - Peru. In addition the farm is certified by EUREPGAP with the "Good Agricultural Practices Certification."

Lastly, Essential Living Foods uses additional special storage and transportation to ensure that the nuts stay super-fresh for at least one year after arriving in the states (provided they are stored in cool, dry conditions).

In fact, just to make sure they are never damaged by heat, these Pecans are shipped strictly on refrigerated containers and kept in refrigerated storage upon arrival. Both precautions are expensive, but well worth the added freshness and long-lasting taste they provide.
Nutritional Benefits

   * Essential Living Foods’s Organic Pecans are loaded with essential minerals and vitamins, especially the antioxidant vitamin E.
   * Recent studies have shown that consuming nuts — Pecans especially — can potentially lower cholesterol and even aid in weight management. This is partially because Pecans contain an abundance of heart-healthy, unsaturated fats.
   * Pecans also contain more than 19 vitamins and minerals such as vitamin E, folic acid, calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc and several B vitamins.

ABOUT ESSENTIAL LIVING FOODS.

Social Impact

At Essential Living Foods, we believe that business needs to have a positive impact on the world, using the power of commerce to improve lives, communities, and ecosystems. We strive to be a “good corporate citizen” in a multitude of ways, creating positive social impact with our business model, the partners we choose, giving back a portion of our revenues and profits, how we treat our employees, and the nutritional and healing properties of our products. Everyone who works here feels great about doing something good in the world while earning a decent living at the same time.

Fair Trade

Essential Living Foods started as an importer of unique organic foods, and from the beginning we’ve built our business on paying fair prices to our farming partners. We do our best to go directly to the source whenever possible, bypassing middleman so we can deliver the best value to our customers AND pay premium prices to the growers. There are a few different certifying organizations out there putting a third party seal on these fair trade practices. We are working with all of them to get these seals in place, but even while that is in process, you can rest assured that your purchases from Essential Living Foods is supporting farmers through equitable trade practices!

Giving Back

We don’t just pay fair prices for our foods – we share our success with our farming communities by giving back a portion of what we make.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a big word for us. It means that we have to sustain our business, because if we aren’t profitable and growing, we won’t exist in the future to continue doing the good that we’re doing. It also means that we want to do everything we can to not deplete non-renewable resources and to rebuild and protect fragile ecosystems. We do this at the farm level by the organic agriculture techniques we use, as well as things like powering our office on solar power and buying carbon credits to offset all of our corporate air travel and all of our food import transportation carbon emissions.

Partners

Money flows around and around. We make money from the sales of our products, and we try to do as much good as we can with how and from whom we purchase our foods from. But aside from buying our amazing, healthy, organic superfoods, we also spend a lot of money each year on more mundane items like banking services, legal services, etc. We try to find companies of a like mind to ours to work with. We find that they understand us better, and hence can offer us better service, and we feel good that we can keep the prosperity flowing to other companies doing good in the world. Check out this link to see just some of these great partners we have!