IFT First 2025: Almond Board of California’s latest R&D
23 Jul 2025 | Almond Board of California
We spoke with Clarice Turner, CEO of the Almond Board of California, about how almonds are replacing traditional animal-based ingredients and answering consumer demands for healthier, environmentally sustainable foods. The company showcased its almond-based jerky and confectionery items.
We're live at IFT first.
I'm joined by Clarice Turner, CEO of the Almond Board of California.
Hi there.
Hi.
Could you start by telling us what are the key research or marketing initiatives you're featuring this year?
Team research and marketing.
There's a lot going on right now.
What we were just talking about earlier is, we've been collaborating with a company called Bright Seed, which is in the AI business, and trying to discover new things about almonds.
We have about 30 years' worth of research, already, that the almond Board's conducted over the years, and the, Bright Seed folks helped us to essentially.
Unleash AI through our data and have a lot more insights, literally down to the molecular level, the quality of almonds, so it is unlocked directionally a bunch of different areas that we can go do more research on.
Almonds are so nutritional and healthy for the human body.
It's amazing, but it even came up with more.
So now we've got gut health.
We've got.
Joint health, we've got the gut microbiome, we've got weight management, all sorts of different areas that that AI work in collaboration with Bright Seed has unveiled.
So a lot more to go study now.
And then how is the almond board addressing sustainability and water stewardship in the industry?
I would love to give you one of our sustainability infographics, so.
We're very fortunate in the almond industry.
We've been collecting data on our farming practices that our farmers report to us for a little bit over 20 years, so just in the past couple of years we took all that data and synthesized it to talk about our sustainability and stewardship practices.
So our farmers, we have, 7600 almond farms in California.
And 90% of those are family farms, so that's 2nd and 3rd generation, and they live on their farms typically, so they are great stewards of the land, and have reduced, water usage through technology, mainly in micro irrigation systems and a lot of different best practices that are shared across the industry.
So it's been about a 30% reduction, over 5 years and then further reductions after that.
The other thing is that almonds are a zero waste crop because every single thing that comes off the orchard has a destination and supply chain.
Some go to animal feed.
Obviously a lot goes to humans, but there's no waste, and they're also the trees are, capturing a lot of carbon out of the air.
So, so far.
Since we've been measuring through our data, we've captured about 30 million metric tons out of the air in California.
So that's about 24 million passenger cars, so equivalent of all the passenger cars in California, Oregon, Washington, and Texas.
So every year we keep cleaning the air, which is a really cool thing.
Brilliant.
And you've got some new almond-based products on display this year.
Could you describe them for us?
Yes, Chef Henry is very creative, and the guy knows a lot about how to work with almonds.
So we've got some almond jerky here, which is a medley of different vegetables that all have umami base.
And some nice spices and some, almond powder, so it's deep fatted almond flour we call it almond powder, comes together to, to make a very, very compelling, jerky, and then we've got, sort of a 2025 adaptation of a pop tart, which has chopped almonds.
It has almond oil, again deep fatted almond flour, and almond butter in the middle.
A little bit of nice, sweetness on the top.
And so that's our almond pop tart.
And tomorrow we have an almond butter cookie, I understand, that I have not had yet.
So essentially showcasing some of the different less common forms of almonds.
We do have 14 forms, and a lot of people don't know how to use them.
So we're trying to have fun and play with that and we've got some great chefs working in collaboration with our team to do that.
Brilliant.
And then I wanted to ask, are there any regulatory or trade policy changes that your members are watching?
We're always watching for that all around the world.
There's a lot of different volatility and we have great relationships throughout the world.
We trade with 100 different countries throughout the world, you know, 10 of our highest volumes, especially.
We spend a lot of time.
Throughout the world, just trying to make sure we're keeping trade flowing as best we can and are collaborating with governments, with regulatory, whomever.
A lot of times, you know, rules can be different from country to country, so it's a matter of just finding common ground and solving some of the disconnects that can happen that we do that every day.
Sometimes that takes months, sometimes that takes years.
But we have a lot of great collaborative relationships around the world.
So as far as what happens with trade and tariffs and those things, it's really too early to tell yet.
So we're monitoring all that and again our relationships are very strong, and part of the role that the Almond board plays is that we keep a lot of data on various, various things.
So we're constantly reporting on the impact of.
Revenue and jobs, you know, for example, in Europe, California almonds supply 65% of European almond consumption.
So there's a lot of manufacturing jobs, a lot of different things that could potentially be impacted if tariffs were to hit the almond industry, not just, you know, European almonds.
So, facts and data are really important when you're trying to make decisions.
And then how are you working with manufacturers to expand almond usage in new applications?
We're actually, that's, that's sort of white space for us right now.
We are very focused on innovation at the moment, as I mentioned, we have 14 forms, and what we don't have is a lot of detail on those forms in terms of fat content, water content, how they behave from a viscosity standpoint, you know, can you substitute almond flour for wheat flour.
One, a lot of different sort of educational pieces that could be super helpful, to not only chefs, but food scientists and R&D folks.
So we're working on, for example, in 5 different countries, we have a bakery program that we're developing that is centered around almond flour and almond paste.
And we have 5 schools, including the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore.
Working with us to design the curriculum because we literally don't have it today and there's so much demand, you know, for healthier plant proteins in a variety of ways to be able to combat diabetes and some of the other, very common issues around the world that, we're working side by side with a lot of collaborators, to try to bring these things to light.
So it's, it's a new space.
It's white space for us.
It's very exciting.
Brilliant, Grace, thank you.
You're welcome.
