The Authentic Almond Project

California-grown raw almonds are no longer raw, following enactment of a new federal rule. The USDA mandate requires raw almonds to be sanitized using treatment processes that the industry generously describes as “pasteurization.”

The rule requires sanitation of almonds with a toxic fumigant or treatment with high-temperature heat. The scheme imposes significant financial burdens on small-scale and organic growers, lacks scientific justification, damages domestic almond markets, and does not address the unsustainable methods used on the industrial-scale almond orchards where the only two documented Salmonella outbreaks have occurred. And the treated almonds can still be deceptively labeled as “raw!”