Happy summer salad with roasted melon seeds

To decorate and add a nutty flavour to your summer salads, we have developed a new salad topping with #absolutelydelicious dry roasted watermelon seeds, as a perfect substitute for pine nuts. With or without a pinch of salt, it turns your salads into a culinary tour de force.

Melon seeds are a vegetable and natural source of protein, a source of B vitamins, iron and magnesium and #melonseeds contain healthy fatty acids, which have a positive effect on your blood vessels.

Contact us for more information. Happy summer and… Enjoy!

Gingerbread day

Virgin Nuts is famous for caramelised nuts, seeds and cereals with one of our 5 base flavours: honey, maple, cinnamon, vanilla and… gingerbread. Gingerbread is a comforting mix of aromatic spices that makes our thoughts wander off to autumn and winter, picturing fragrant home baked cookies. What a surprise to learn that in the USA this fragrant food is celebrated on the 5th of June.

For us, it’s the perfect moment to bring your attention to one of our favourite base flavours. Gingerbread is #absolutelydelicious with brown almonds and they also combine very well with pecan nuts and granola too, but our top favourite is caramelised pretzel granulate with #gingerbread. These aromatic gingerbread pretzel pieces are a perfect ingredient for #chocolate and #breakfastcereals. With main spices like ginger, cinnamon and cloves, gingerbread uplifts every type of food or moment to a #loveatfirstbite and comforting one.

Happy Gingerbread day and… Enjoy!

Pecans, crunchy & icy

Ice cream can be topped or filled with many ingredients, but of course we prefer ice cream with caramelised nuts, like these #absolutelydelicious caramelised pecans.

Of course, not only pecan nuts are suitable for #icecream. Thanks to our artisanal caramelisation process all types of (diced) nuts (hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, walnuts, etc.) get an essential barrier to lock in the flavour of the nuts and to preserve their crunchiness. Depending on the production method of ice cream, an optionally additional layer of coconut oil prevents the sugar from draining.

To ensure that even more people can enjoy your delicious ice cream, on request we can produce your ice cream ingredients peanut free as well.

Bee engaged

Virgin Nuts is well-known for #absolutelydelicious #honey coated nuts, seeds and cereals. As we all know, honey is a sweet, syrup-like food substance that bees produce from the nectar of flowering plants. For several years now, bees and other pollinators are increasingly under threat from human activities.

Pollination is, however, a fundamental process for the survival of our ecosystems. To raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development, the United Nations designated 20 May as #WorldBeeDay.

#worldfairtradeday Doing well by doing good

In November 2020 we’ve introduced our #virginfairnuts line in cooperation with nuts2. Besides sustainable production, products and packaging, Virgin Nuts values sustainable and equitable trade.

nuts2 is known for its Fair Trade cashews which are both grown and processed in Africa, generating employment and income for nearly 5,000 local workers. Concentrating the full process locally, also results in a smaller carbon footprint, thus CO2-reduction.

We’re pleased to announce that now we can produce your caramelised or dry roasted and seasoned #fairtrade cashews even more #sustainable with herbs and spices from Griffith Foods.

Royal decoration

It’s with pride and great pleasure to announce that our father has been royal decorated and as of today is a Member in the 'Orde van Oranje-Nassau'. His contribution to the community, in the fields of sports and culture, has been greatly appreciated and has put him on this year's Honours list (#lintjesregen).

Although he has been retired for many years now, he’s still actively involved in various commissions and in the technical department at Virgin Nuts. We’re so grateful for his technical and continuously innovative contribution.

Behind every successful man is a great woman and the greatest of course, is our Mum, our family’s empress. It’s thanks to both our parents, that every day we’re motivated to #thinkinginsolutions #highquality #uniqueproducts #serviceonly #100%natural

Diederick & José van Merkestijn

Don't compromise on flavour and indulgence

Recently we read an interesting article in Snacks Magazine Spring edition, mentioning that "brands are increasingly looking for ingredients that can deliver nutritionally, but don’t compromise on flavour and indulgence". Besides health being an important focus, "consumers are looking to food to support their mental wellbeing and make them feel good, so 'tasty treats' are also in demand. Indulgent snacking is still important, as is flavour and the overall snacking experience."

These phrases fully match our product assortment. With nuts as a healthy base, we add #100%natural ingredients to turn them into a tasty and indulgent treat. While working at home, a handful of #highquality caramelised and flavoured nuts - for instance our Honey rosemary nuts - will give you an energy boost. And at your favourite snacking time, a handful of Honey BBQ almonds will definitely make you feel relaxed.

BRCGS Food Safety AA-level certified

Yesss! For the 13th year in a row, we’ve passed our annual BRCGS Food Safety audit with glance and again the highest AA-level is achieved.

Our BRCGS certificate, a leading recognition, shows that the Virgin Nuts production facilities (including our peanut free facility) meet all food safety (incl. food defense and food fraud prevention) requirements set by the British Retail Consortium (BRCGS).

The BRCGS certificate is recognized by the GFSI, the worldwide partnership of retailers.

Happy Easter

The second Easter without long time family traditions. Thanks to numerous digital and creative solutions, we can still spend valuable time with friends and family.

So, despite restrictions and lockdowns, let’s meet, eat and play games together with your loved ones these Easter day(s). Synchronize your brunch tables and contact the ones you want to spend Easter with. Eat, chat and enjoy!

We wish you all Happy Easter.

Caramelised almonds for chocolate

Chocolate is an #absolutelydelicious product. Imagine that extra dimension if chocolate is enriched by caramelised nuts, like these #loveatfirstbite caramelised almonds in the picture, but also seeds or puffed grains… Virgin Nuts is specialised in caramelising chocolate ingredients in many #100%natural flavours.
Besides that the nuts and (puffed) cereals remain crunchy, it prevents fat bloom and that makes every #chocolateproducer and #chocolatelover very happy.

Spring holidays 2021

During the upcoming holidays, our factories will be closed on:

• 2 April: Good Friday
• 5 April: Easter Monday
• 27 April: King's Day
• 13 May: Ascension Day (14 May: Factories closed)
• 24 May: Whit Monday

Contact us for more information about our production scheduling during the upcoming spring holidays. We wish you happy days!

Nationale Week zonder Vlees (No Meat Week)

Every year in March, we have this theme week in The Netherlands: Nationale Week zonder Vlees (No Meat Week) to encourage us all to not consuming meat for one week.

The aim of the campaign is to make the Netherlands aware of the positive environmental impact of eating less meat, and to show how easy this can actually be. Lots of companies and local celebrities support this campaign and even restaurants and suppliers of meal kits offer meatless menus.

To make our dinners just as tasteful, we add (pea)nuts to our dishes instead. For instance a good plate of nasi with our own spicy honey peanuts. The chili in this product gives your meal a kick, just like seasoned meat would do.

Want to adopt a flexitarian eating pattern, without compromising good tasting food? Combine your meals with caramelised or dry roasted and seasoned nuts or peanuts. Together we can make a difference.

International Women's Day

What a surprise! Our Polish colleagues brightened up this grey Monday with flowers for the women and cake for everyone to celebrate International Women’s Day, which was a national holiday in Poland for many years.

This touching gesture emphasizes the good, close and respectful cooperation of all colleagues, no matter gender, race or nationality. At Virgin Nuts we act according to the United Nations Global Compact Human Rights Principles.

We’re proud to work with women and men of multiple nationalities together in good harmony. Key principle: Always treat people the way you want to be treated: with respect.

Szczęśliwego Dzień Kobiet (Happy Women’s Day)!

4-3-21

It’s… TODAY! The descending low numbers of this special date inspired us to emphasize our clean label products and the minimum of ingredients that are used to create #absolutelydelicious #highquality #100%natural and #uniqueproducts we produce. Either caramelised or dry roasted and seasoned. We make it happen.

4 - Dry roasted rosemary chili almonds; only 4 ingredients make this #loveatfirstbite product: almonds, rosemary, chili and sea salt.
3 - Honey cashews; beautiful moon shaped cashews with sugar and honey; that’s all what’s needed to make an indulgent caramelised cashew with honey.
2 - Caramelised pecans; pecans and sugar (either beet sugar sor raw cane sugar); a perfect combination for allowing nuts to be processed in chocolate or ice cream, while preserving their original taste and crunchiness.
1 - We can also supply plain or roasted #almonds, #cashews, #hazelnuts, #peanuts, #pecans or other nuts. Pure and simple.

4 March 2021, we call it #cleanlabelday. Happy 4-3-21!

Granola for Food Bank

Sometimes you will only know the true value of food when it becomes unaffordable ... Thanks to Voedselbanken Nederland (Food Bank), food remains accessible, even when the going gets tough.

And unfortunately, the going also got tough for one of our customers. They didn’t survive the COVID-19 related regulations in their country and had to return freshly produced #absolutelydelicious granola. We’ve immediately decided to donate this granola to the Voedselbank and support their main goals: providing direct food aid to the ones in need and preventing the waste of good food.

Our 5 core values #thinkinginsolutions #highquality #uniqueproducts #serviceonly #100%natural all the way.

Clean label caramelised peanuts; safe snacking

Peanuts, you love them or you hate them (maybe even cannot eat them ;-(). Just like tree nuts, peanuts are full of unsaturated fats, iron, B vitamins and vitamin E, hence super healthy. At Virgin Nuts, we turn these ground nuts into an indulgent and clean label snack. No e-numbers and no artificial flavouring nor colouring. Our famous caramelised peanuts (or sugar peanuts, if you prefer) only consist of peanuts and sugar and are natural golden brown. On top of this: the caramelised layer provides a crunch, while the specific peanut flavour is retained. 100% natural caramelised peanuts… we love them!

p.s. if you have a zero-tolerance policy for peanuts, don’t let this post scare you off. We have a peanut free production facility, especially for the production of ingredients for many peanut free applications.

It’s all thanks to hazelnuts

5 February is #WorldNutellaDay, one of the most indulgent days of the year. Nutella® is a perfect combination of hazelnuts and cocoa. The story goes that it was a shortage of cocoa in the Piedmont region of Italy back in the 1800s, causing these two nature ingredients to combine. To stretch the supply, chocolate was mixed with ground hazelnuts. Much later Nutella® became the creamy version of the mixture and it’s one of those products that everyone knows around the world.

The reason that we honour this famous product, is obviously our love for hazelnuts – especially caramelised - and the #loveatfirstbite combination that nuts make - especially if caramelised 😉 - with chocolate. Whether whole, diced or slivered, we can produce Caramelised hazelnuts as the perfect ingredient for your chocolate.

Crunchy honey peanuts for peanut butter

January 24th is #NationalPeanutButterDay. On this day, the over 100 year old spread in its current form, gets the recognition it deserves. Creamy or chunky, with chocolate or with jelly, all delicious, but our top favourite is peanut butter with crunchy Honey peanuts #loveatfirstbite.

We’ve celebrated the anniversary with lots and lots of this comforting and filling spread. Of course only in our main building, because obviously we have a zero tolerance for peanuts and derivatives in our #peanutfree facility.

Botanical flavours @ Virgin Nuts

It’s winter in Europe. Even though it can be cold outside, it’s the season where we bring extra lights and warmth into our homes. And lots of comfortable smelling green and flowers. It’s the season in which we’ve said goodbye to the old and welcomed the new year. A new year in which the pandemic hopefully will be controlled, giving us free access to an enjoyable summer. With our Honey rose almonds we give you a sneak preview of a happy season full of light and fresh botanical flavours.