Walnuts for Holiday Baking Languish as US Shipping Crisis Hurts Farmers

Walnuts for Holiday Baking Languish as US Shipping Crisis Hurts Farmers
Workers hand sort shelled walnuts along conveyor belts at GoldRiver Orchards, in Escalon, Calif., on Nov. 16, 2021. Brittany Hosea-Small/Reuters
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ESCALON, CALIF.—The shrink-wrapped boxes of fresh California walnuts stacked almost to the ceiling in Don Barton’s California packing facility should be headed to Europe for holiday baking and to Asia for New Year celebrations.

Instead, newly cleaned and shelled nuts—about $10 million worth—are stuck at his processing plant near Sacramento, thousands of miles from their destinations, as the global supply chain crisis squeezes ports.