About us

From the beginning of the 20th century, the almond sector began to evolve. The data set out below has been compiled in collaboration with Luis Cremades Belmonte, José Cremades Hernández, Francisco Molina Mira and José Luis Albacete Viudes without whom it would not have been possible to carry out this work.

The almond tree that is currently cultivated for the use of its fruits, more specifically its seeds, seems to have its origin in the mountainous areas of Central Asia, by hybridization of several species that can still be found in the wild today in several countries of the world. Asian continent, including Iran, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. The cultivated almond tree spread to the countries of the Mediterranean basin and, later, to other climatically optimal areas of the continent. The cultivation of almonds has its origin in the Near East, where the Greeks already appreciated the excellent qualities of this dry fruit. Later, the Romans extended its cultivation to Spain, from where it would reach America.

Around the year 1920, Luis Cremades Garcia decided to dedicate himself to the almond trading. buying inshell almonds and selling as shelled almonds. At that time, in the 1920s/1930s, cracking almonds was manual, performed by women, initially with round wooden mallets. Shortly after it would be made with square iron maces with small grooves. This cracking work was carried out on stone tables. The almonds were placed on them, soaked 24 hours before, to prevent the kernel from being damaged when hitting the almonds with the mallets. Later, it was placed on the same tables what each woman had shelled until noon, in the afternoon she had to separate the kernel from the shell. The work was done on a piece-rate basis. At the end of the work day, the almond kernel that each woman had extracted from the shelling was weighted. The daily shelling per person was about 8 to 10 kg of nuggets. In the year 1931 the first machines for cracking the almonds were born, IVARS brand, model B. UNIVERSAL and manufactured in Benisa (Alicante). The production of shelled almonds from these machines was about 2,000/2,500 kg per day. Once it was cracked, it went to some wooden tables where several women manually separated the kernel from the shell. This kernel was deposited in bags and once the working day was over, they were individually weighted to know the amount of kernel that each woman had cleaned.

Between the years 1941-42, a new, more modern model of almond cracking machine was launched on the market, by Mr. Ángel Borrel, from Denia (Alicante). The production of this machine was about 4,000/4,500 kg per day in 8/10 hour shift. In addition, this machine could be coupled with a kernel-shell separator machine. The first cracking machine of this model, a Borrell brand, was acquired by Messrs. Francisco Molina Verdú and Francisco Mira Pérez in 1940. Mr. José Borrell, son of Mr. Ángel Borrell, the inventor of the Borrel cracking machines, continued working and improving all the models in all kinds of machinery related to almonds and other nuts. The machine in the previous photograph was installed in 1944 in Alcantarilla (Murcia), in an industrial premises owned by Mr. Luis Cremades García, with whom Messrs. Molina Verdú and Mira Pérez had formed a Mercantile Society. At that time the transport of almonds from the field to the warehouse was done with trucks, since the few trucks that existed at that time were able to load between 3 and 5 tons and were used for longer trips, such as to Alicante or Jijona; due to world political reasons, the supply of tyre covers and fuel was lacking. To solve the fuel shortage, the vehicles had to work with “gasgenos”, which were coupled boilers that produced gas and made the vehicle engines to work. These “gasgenos” worked with coal, wood or almond shell.

In 1967, the facilities were expanded with a distribution machine and another separator machine, increasing the cracking performance to 10,000 kg of almonds per day, around 2,000 kg of kernels, counting for this with 6 or 8 women, in a working day of 8/10 hours a day.

Chairs of selection department

Almond cracking line - review line by optical sorters.