A ripe cashew fruit (apple) with its connected cashew nut, nestled in a protecting shell.
The cashew nut is iconic, each in its distinctive boxing-glove form and creamy style. Much less identified is the cashew apple, a bulbous fruit from which the nut protrudes.
Fibrous and chewy, farmers and trade have been struggling to discover a use for the fruit. Yearly, 36.9 million tonnes of cashew apples are produced, nonetheless they’re principally discarded as waste. Solely 3.5% is used commercially.
However two entrepreneurs in Senegal say that the identical fibrous traits that make it an unpopular fruit, make it the proper meat various.
They’re processing the wasted fruit into ‘cashew meat’ and exporting it to developed nations, assembly demand from customers trying to scale back their meat consumption and deal with the greenhouse fuel emissions of the livestock sector.
Described as a ‘win-win-win’ for meals waste, local weather change, and cashew farmers, may this little-known fruit be the way forward for plant-based meat, an trade price an estimated $13.9 billion in 2023, and anticipated to succeed in $290 billion by 2033?
‘Similar to animal meat’
Founding father of Cashewmeetly, Linnéa Falkinger, found the cashew apple’s untapped potential when having dinner with mates within the southern area of Senegal in 2016.
“I assumed that I used to be consuming like some type of meat stew, so I used to be shocked when my mates instructed me it was cashew apples,” says Falkinger, explaining that cashew producers had lengthy been searching for a function for this underutilised crop.
“The feel and color are similar to animal meat,” says the Swedish entrepreneur who has lived periodically in Senegal for the reason that age of 16. “It has an umami style with candy and bitter notes, versatile however with out the unusual aftertaste that soya merchandise can have.”
Coincidentally, Senegal is dwelling to 2 of the few world producers of cashew meat. Independently of Cashewmeetly, co-founder of Senegalese startup Nutrivie, Latifa Diedhou started producing a line of vegetarian meat from cashew apples three years in the past.
Diedhou’s discovery of the cashew apple’s potential was extra intentional: “In the course of the cashew harvest, I noticed all of the fruit rotting into the bottom. I assumed there was an enormous alternative right here.”
After 5 years of improvement, Diedhou, in collaboration along with her mom, a meals processing engineer, and with the assist of the French agricultural analysis institute, CIRAD, has efficiently introduced her cashew meat to market. In 2022, Diedhou undertook a startup accelerator scheme with the local weather change NGO AICCRA that supplied enterprise coaching and the prospect to current her product and enterprise to buyers. Diedhou gained $15,000 on this spherical of funding to scale her enterprise.
Wanting to guard their secret recipes, each entrepreneurs stay tight-lipped on the manufacturing processes, solely revealing that it’s a mix of slicing, washing and boiling the apples to supply the cashew meat.
Cashewmeetly presently exports its merchandise to Europe.
Nevertheless, the 2 entrepreneurs are at completely different levels of their respective enterprise lifecycles. Cashewmeetly exports cashew meat processed in cooperatives from a number of places – together with Senegal, Benin, Tanzania, and Brazil – to Europe. The product is on the market in over 500 branches of the Swedish grocery store chain Axfood, featured in prepared meals at Stockholm’s City Deli, and is distributed throughout Europe. Falkinger reveals that it’ll quickly start exporting to the US and Japan.
In the meantime, Diedhou is presently in Paris in search of one other spherical of funding and pitching Nutrivie’s cashew meat to European retailers whereas distributing regionally in Senegal.
Navigating export challenges
Each entrepreneurs spotlight the difficulties of exporting processed African merchandise to developed markets, a reversal of the historic commerce sample the place uncooked commodities had been shipped to the worldwide north for processing and worth addition.
Falkinger of Cashewmeetly feedback on this development inside the cashew nut trade: “Ninety-five per cent of cashew nuts grown in Africa are exported and processed in a foreign country and solely 5% of the roles keep native.
“It doesn’t need to be this manner if we create a enterprise mannequin that retains jobs native and reinvests in kids’s training,” says the Swede who shares her earnings with native communities by investing in faculties and providing microloans to African entrepreneurs.
Assembly the stringent requirements required for distribution in Europe and elsewhere is each laborious and dear.
The requisite FSSC 22000 certification is without doubt one of the highest meals high quality requirements. It covers all the pieces from environmental standards for producers, transport, storage, processing, well being and security on manufacturing facility premises, meals hygiene, packaging, traceability and digitalisation of firm knowledge. Yearly, the businesses endure a deliberate audit the place an inspector goes by way of the paperwork and manufacturing line to handle any dangers, plus an unannounced go to every year.
With solely 10 workers at Nutrivie, Diedhou says it’s difficult for these not working at an industrial scale: “We’re in between artisanal and industrial, we have to scale as much as make our processes extra even.”
Falkinger notes that low literacy charges compound the problem in fulfilling the intensive paperwork required to export Cashewmeetly merchandise.
Added to this, political unrest can additional complicate manufacturing in Africa. “The height season for cashew apples is barely eight weeks, and any unrest can shut down a complete yr’s manufacturing,” says Falkinger, highlighting the instance of current protests in Senegal associated to the upcoming elections.
Latifa Diedhou, founding father of Nutrivie
‘The market is prepared’
Regardless of these hurdles, Cashewmeetly has efficiently established export operations from three African nations and is eyeing growth into Nigeria, India, and Mozambique. Presently, the corporate is establishing a manufacturing facility in Senegal, which is projected to make use of 500 people, though the undertaking has confronted a number of building setbacks.
“Endurance is your finest pal,” says Falkinger with a wry smile.
“The market is prepared for cashew meat that may be traced from farm to desk,” she says. “For the reason that begin, the demand is larger than the availability. Prospects from world wide search us out – the product has principally marketed itself.”
From a well being perspective, Diedhou factors on the market’s so much to love concerning the product in comparison with many plant-based meats.
“Many are soy-based and ultra-processed, whereas we simply use one ingredient – nobody out there can say the identical,” says Diedhou, including that Nutrivie’s cashew meat has attracted the eye of European retailers, contingent on acquiring export certification.
As of July, Cashewmeetly’s merchandise are Fairtrade and natural licensed, guaranteeing higher worth for farmers and staff whereas additionally enhancing its advertising and marketing with further moral credentials.
Whether or not ‘made in Africa’ cashew meat can turn into the front-runner for meat alternate options, stays to be seen. But when it does, it is going to in no small half be as a result of willpower and endurance of entrepreneurs like Diedhou and Falkinger.
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