Nuts about Elgin

The next time you're standing in line at an airport security checkpoint, just be thankful you're not a peanut.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security may be a pain. But it's got nothing on the Fisher Nuts plant out here in Elgin.

Metal detectors, quality testers, visual inspectors, and more -- all making sure that the can of mixed nuts you pick up at the grocery store is all it's cracked up to be.

John B. Sanfilippo and Son recently opened the doors to the company's new, 1 million-square-foot plant at Randall Road, just south of the Northwest Tollway in Elgin.

The maker of Fisher Nuts' grand opening isn't until September.

But the facility is already nuts, with long rows of high-tech equipment and hundreds of employees in lab coats pumping out millions of pounds of peanuts (actually legumes, not nuts), walnuts, cashews and more for customers around the world.

"I always like the smell of raw peanuts," said Jeffrey Sanfilippo, the company's chief executive officer, as he walked into one of the building's two cold storage rooms.

The rooms are stacked full of them: peanuts in one, all the other varieties of nuts in the other.

Each bag can weigh as much as a small car -- anywhere from 1,800 to 2,000 pounds.

And Sanfilippo says the company can turn around the whole lot of them -- roasting, packaging and all -- within three to four weeks.

That's no small feat, considering the company ships an estimated 5 million to 6 million pounds of nuts a day during peak season in late fall.

But first, the nuts have to come out of cold storage. And that's when the action really heats up.

The nuts are run through a metal detector.

They're put in a tube that sucks out foreign materials.

They're eyed by an inspector.

The may be roasted over a bed of hot oil.

They're eyed by another inspector.

They're checked for salt content, look and feel (though some nuts are sold unsalted).

And they're split up.

Peanuts one way. Almonds another.

Some nuts are packaged separately. Some are mixed.

They go into big bags, little bags, glass jars, plastic containers.

They're sealed, labeled, stored and shipped.

And all of that is coordinated out of the Elgin facility, where Sanfilippo says it can produce as many as 2,000 different products.

"It's a large operation," he said.

It's also a growing operation.

Sanfilippo says they've moved about 70 percent of the operation from the old Elk Grove Village facility.

So you won't see sesame sticks and cheese puffs coming out of Elgin just yet.

But it won't be long before the company is all moved in.

And that means big business for the city of Elgin.

"We wanted to stay local," Sanfilippo said of their decision to move the base of operations to Elgin.

"They've been a great partner."