How can I purchase your products?
You can purchase our products from our Shop Page, Amazon, and various Locations we wholesale too.
Who do you ship through and how long does it take?
Most shipping is done via USPS and takes roughly 3-5 days to ship based on location in the country. If the order is over a certain weight limit, we ship UPS ground. We do not ship expedited orders. If you absolutely need your order sooner, please contact us at info@thepistachiofactory.com
I don’t live in the United States, can I still buy your products?
We are currently not setup to ship outside the United States due to the logistics cost, but we have for customers in Canada. If you would like for us to ship to Canada or Mexico please contact us at info@thepistachiofactory.com. Flat rate shipping costs start around $45 and can take up to 30 days to receive order.
What is the shelf life of your Pistachio Products?
All our Pistachio products naturally have a long shelf life of 12 months not opened. For pistachio butters/paste once opened it is best to stir well/knead as the natural pistachio oils will rise to the top over time (like all other natural nut butters). Once opened it is best if consumed within 6 - 8 months.
What is the difference between Pistachio Paste and Pistachio Butter?
The main difference between the pistachio butter and the pistachio paste is the texture and viscosity. The pistachio paste is ground down to a very fine micron size where 95% of the particle sizes are under 20 microns (basically like melted chocolate). The pistachio paste is better for culinary options as it tends to blend/mix better than pistachio butter.
Whereas the pistachio butter has more of a thicker texture where if a knife is ran through it will hold its shape for the most part. You will also see some large particle sizes (30 – 90 microns) in the pistachio butter but it still won’t have that crunchy feeling.
Pistachio butter/paste Storage: To Refrigerate or Not?
Storing in a cool dry place works best (kitchen cupboard or pantry) as long as the lid is tightly shut. Refrigeration is at the consumers’ discretion and doesn’t hurt the product at all. If you do decide to refrigerate, little oil bubbles may form over a long period of time due to the natural oils from pistachios. We recommend taking it out of the refrigerator for 5- 10 minute to reach room temperature and stir to achieve that smooth spreadable consistency.
Do you process any other nuts or products in your facility?
The Pistachio Factory is unlike any other nut company, as we use 100% pistachios for our ingredients. The only other ingredient we use is sea salt for our roasted sea salted pistachio butter.
Considering we are solely a pistachio growing family we only have pistachios in our facility. This makes our products free from most allergens. Please refer to the Allergy page for more info.
Are your products Organic?
Our pistachios are not certified organic mainly due to the location of our pistachio orchards. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by other conventional farming orchards that spray.
For example, since the surrounding orchards spray for bugs, the bugs fly to neighboring crops in swarms and can wipe out a large percentage of the crop within 24-48 hours. Buffer zones as well as critical timing measures are required for organic pistachios that make our location cost prohibitive.
Many organic pistachio growers are in isolated regions of the state where organic farming is more feasible or have taken previous measures to ensure the safety of the crop before planting.
We are hoping in the future that this will be more feasible for us and we can transition into organic certification. We currently practice our farming in the most sustainable way possible and only spray if we absolutely need too. Many of the chemicals or fertilizers we do put down are made up of a combination of purely organic substances and we always go this route when possible.
Food Certifications Explained (Non-GMO, Gluten-Free, and Etc.)
*We are Kosher Certified*
As of 2024 we don't know the amount of 3rd party food certifications that exists in the food retail world, but we do understand their importance. The Pistachio Factory is still a somewhat small food manufacturer and we are constantly evolving so we can provide the best product to our consumers.
We would love to be certified through the many strong standing food verification companies and have their seal on our packaging, but unfortunately the higher cost associated with these seals are out of our reach for many.
What most consumers don’t know is that these food certified companies (Non-GMO, Gluten Free, Vegan, Peanut-free and the many other trademarked 3rd party certification companies) charge a premium yearly price to hold their seal on your label.
Even though we pass all these certifications naturally we would have extend those costs to our products and you save a lot less.
Are you Non-GMO?
Yes! We are Non -GMO. In fact, we have never heard of any genetically modified pistachios. The pistachio industry as a whole has no genetically modified pistachio trees that we know of.
Are your products Kosher?
We are Kosher Certified through EARTHKOSHER. Certificate KC#VK26406-1
Are your products Vegan?
All our products are naturally vegan and there are no byproducts of animals used in our pistachio only facility.
Are your products Gluten-Free
All our products are Gluten-Free and no other gluten products are used in our facility or process.
Is your process and facility Peanut-Free?
No Peanuts are used, processed, cross contaminated, and or permitted in our pistachio only facility!
Does your products or process contain any dairy or soy?
This is the same as peanuts, as we don’t process and make any products that contain dairy or soy.
Why do pistachios and pistachio butter tend to be more expensive than other nut butters and nuts?
We as pistachios growers and pistachio butter manufactures get this question a lot. It’s a very good question and we completely understand why our consumers can be confused about this. There are actually many variables as to why pistachios cost a little more than other nuts, but below we tried our best to summarize the main reasons.
- Pistachios are a huge investment upfront and they take 6-7 years to get your first crop (1 crop per year). Those first 6 years of growth are crucial in making sure you have healthy producing pistachios for 50-70 years. This makes the initial investment very expensive and there is no guarantee in farming.
Due to the large upfront investment and time for a returned profit there is only a fraction of farmers who are producing pistachios compared to other tree nuts like almonds and walnuts. In return the demand exceeds the supply.
- Pistachios crop yields are alternate bearing, meaning they have “On” years and “Off” years every other year. One year the crop can be good while the next year, the crop can be really bad. Pistachio trees are biologically designed this way being native to desert conditions. The good news moving forward is that over the years’ ag practices and ag sciences have evolved to produce pistachios a lot more efficiently.
- Another main reason for the higher cost compared to other nuts is the supply in the marketplace. For example, we can compare almonds and pistachios in the marketplace. All the pistachios that are produced in the US equates to roughly 500 - 900 million pounds a year. That’s 500 – 900 million pounds of pistachios with the shell on (we call it shell weight).
While all the almonds produced in the US equates to over 2 billion pounds every year with no shell (we call this edible weight). With that much supply, almonds per edible pound are about 30% of the costs price of Pistachio kernels in edible weight. We believe over the next 5-10 years this will change and pistachios will become cheaper.
- The large key variable is edible weight. If you take a pound (16oz) of pistachios with the shells on and remove the shells your stuck with anywhere between 6oz to 9oz of edible pistachio weight. Unfortunately, we can’t grind down the shells to eat, so the price of pistachios are normally double than other nuts like walnuts, pecans, and almonds. I would even go to say that they are 4x-5x more expensive than peanuts.
Since our pistachio butters are a 100% pistachio with no added oils or preservatives/fillers, our pistachio butter is a little more expensive. We stand behind the quality of our pistachios and we make all our pistachio butters in small batches. This ensures that our pistachio butter is the freshest and in fact most jars are sold within 30 days of creation.