Fabricated Seed Technology Drives U.S. Hazelnut Expansion Through Foray Bioscience and Z’s Nutty Ridge Partnership
Foray Bioscience, an emerging innovator in plant biomanufacturing, has announced a new fabricated seed production partnership with Z’s Nutty Ridge, a well-established nut tree nursery and breeding orchard located in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The collaboration represents a significant step forward in addressing one of agriculture’s long-standing challenges: how to efficiently scale the production and distribution of long-lived perennial crops such as nut trees. The announcement follows a similar agreement earlier this year between Foray and West Coast Chestnut, further underscoring growing industry momentum around alternative propagation technologies.
At the core of this partnership is Foray Bioscience’s proprietary “fabricated seed” technology, a novel approach that enables plants to be grown from cells and encapsulated into seed-like structures. Unlike traditional propagation methods—such as grafting or growing from conventional seeds—this technology allows for faster, more consistent, and scalable production of high-performing plant varieties. For crops like hazelnuts, where breeding cycles can take decades and propagation is notoriously difficult, the implications are substantial.
Under the terms of the agreement, Foray will develop fabricated seeds for a selection of Z’s Nutty Ridge’s proprietary hybrid hazelnut parent varieties. These varieties have been specifically bred for resilience and productivity in the northeastern United States. The partnership includes a three-year, multi-million-dollar forward purchase plan, signaling strong commercial commitment from both parties and confidence in the scalability of the technology.
Hazelnuts play a critical role in the global food industry, particularly in the production of chocolate and confectionery products. However, the supply chain for this valuable crop is highly concentrated. Approximately 70% of the world’s hazelnut supply originates from a single region—the Black Sea coast of Turkey. This geographic concentration creates systemic vulnerabilities, exposing the global market—valued at more than $12 billion—to risks such as adverse weather conditions, plant diseases, and geopolitical instability.
Efforts to diversify hazelnut production into other regions, particularly North America, have faced significant biological challenges. European hazelnut varieties, which are favored for their desirable nut characteristics, struggle to perform in North American climates due to susceptibility to a native fungal disease known as Eastern Filbert Blight (EFB). This pathogen has historically limited the viability of commercial hazelnut orchards across much of the United States.
Addressing this challenge has been the life’s work of Jeff and Dawn Zarnowski, the founders of Z’s Nutty Ridge. Over the past 30 years, they have dedicated themselves to breeding hybrid hazelnut varieties capable of thriving in the northeastern U.S. Their work has focused on combining key traits such as cold hardiness, resistance to EFB, and high nut quality—traits that are essential for establishing a competitive domestic hazelnut industry.
Through decades of careful selection, testing, and cultivation, Z’s Nutty Ridge has developed a portfolio of hazelnut genetics that meet these criteria. Their multi-acre breeding orchard, located in USDA climate zones 4 and 5, serves as a living laboratory where thousands of hybrid trees have been evaluated under real-world conditions. The result is a set of regionally adapted varieties that hold promise for expanding hazelnut production in colder climates.
Despite these advances, a major bottleneck has remained: scaling the availability of these improved varieties to meet grower demand. Traditional propagation methods are slow and resource-intensive, often requiring several years to produce sufficient planting material. This lag has prevented many growers from accessing improved genetics, even as interest in domestic hazelnut production continues to grow.
The partnership with Foray Bioscience aims to overcome this bottleneck. By applying fabricated seed technology to Z’s Nutty Ridge’s elite hazelnut varieties, the companies intend to create a more efficient pathway for large-scale distribution. This approach has the potential to reduce the time required to bring new varieties to market by several years, enabling growers to establish orchards more quickly and with greater confidence in plant performance.
Dawn Zarnowski, owner of Z’s Nutty Ridge, emphasized the importance of this advancement, noting that while the breeding work has taken decades, the next critical step is ensuring that these improved trees reach growers at scale. She highlighted fabricated seed technology as a promising solution to bridge this gap and accelerate adoption.
Foray Bioscience’s leadership also sees broader implications for the agricultural sector. Dr. Ashley Beckwith, the company’s founder and CEO, pointed out that many specialty crops—despite their economic and nutritional value—fail to reach widespread cultivation due to limitations in propagation and scalability. This is particularly true for crops that are difficult to propagate through conventional means, such as hazelnuts.
According to Beckwith, Foray’s bioproduction platform is designed to address these challenges by making the deployment of elite plant varieties faster, more predictable, and more repeatable. By standardizing the production process and reducing reliance on traditional methods, the company aims to unlock new opportunities for growers and contribute to the development of more resilient, localized food systems.
The implications of this partnership extend beyond hazelnuts. If successful, the model could be applied to a wide range of perennial crops, including other tree nuts, fruits, and even forestry species. This could pave the way for a new era in plant propagation, where advanced biomanufacturing techniques complement traditional breeding efforts to accelerate agricultural innovation.
In a global context marked by climate uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, and increasing demand for sustainable food production, the ability to rapidly scale resilient crop varieties is becoming ever more critical. Partnerships like the one between Foray Bioscience and Z’s Nutty Ridge illustrate how technological innovation and decades of breeding expertise can come together to address these challenges.
As the collaboration moves forward, industry stakeholders will be watching closely to see how fabricated seed technology performs at commercial scale. Success could not only transform hazelnut production in North America but also redefine how the agricultural sector approaches the propagation and distribution of high-value perennial crops.
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