Egyptian Red Lentils

Egyptian red lentils (Lens culinaris) from Upper Egypt are supplied whole, split and decorticated. The three forms serve different applications and cook very differently, so the enquiry should state which is required: decorticated split lentils break down quickly into a purée and are the form used for soups and dals, while whole lentils hold their shape.

Buyers judge red lentils on colour brightness, size uniformity, the proportion of broken and off-colour material, and on cooking behaviour. Colour is commercially important because the orange-red tone is visible in the finished dish and is what the consumer associates with the product.

Applications include soup and ready-meal manufacture, food service and institutional catering, retail packing, flour and processed-food production, and traditional preparations across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Demand is steady year-round and concentrates ahead of Ramadan.

Upper Egypt's irrigated growing season and dry harvest window suit the crop, and material passes a cleaning, splitting and decortication sequence with de-stoning, sieving, gravity separation, aspiration and magnetic separation, with optical sorting where a colour specification requires it. Each shipment carries a certificate of analysis for the lot supplied. Specifications are available upon request and can be tailored to buyer requirements. FOB Alexandria with the complete export documentation set.