Golden Boy brand mixed...most all wall-nuts and pecans are rancid, most hazels are bad, shriveled, about 2 out of every 6 hazels are empty!

The first time I've seen them come packed in plastic bags...I don't think that's good either, used to be in netting's.

I always look forward for some nuts at this time of the year but this grossed us out!

I know, some bad ones are expected, here I need to throw most away, ..only almonds are ok.

Since most nuts come from south of the boarder I don't have many Joice's.

The packaging, Golden Boy is a Canadian company from Burnaby BC. they got a letter from me.

I can't speak much to the empty hazel nuts, but for the pecan and walnuts, it does sound like a storage issue.

Pecans and walnuts have a high oil content. As you mention, that oil will go rancid with time. Freezing will slow that process.

In the Midwest, they store nuts in cave storage. These are controlled temperature storage, but because the price of pecans has been low for the past couple years, the storage is pretty much full. The caves in Kansas City are all full (according to my wife's kin, who own a pecan orchard). I wonder if the nuts you purchased were stored w/o controlled temperature.

As far as the hazel nuts, I know with pecans they are run through a machine which blows a stream of air across the hopper as the pecans drop. The airstream blows out the empty (lighter) pecans, while the full (heavy pecans drop down). Of course the empty pecans are then discarded. I assume the same equipment is available to hazel nut growers.

Each truckload of pecans is sampled randomly by a probe which is shoved down into the pecans. If there are too many empty pecans, the grower is docked significantly. Based upon what I've been told, there is a strong incentive for the grower not to have very many empties.

It sounds like this Golden Boy brand you purchased has no quality control whatever.

Olpea..I was thinking the same thing about sorting them, a system where the light ones will be collected or blown off.
They surely are in the need of improvement.

Yes, might be some nuts from last year, they really should taste better at this time of the year, sometimes they have sale after Christmas or new year, then you could taste some bad ones.