Indonesia
We work with small-scale cashew growers on the Isle of Flores to develop both ecological sustainability on these fragile volcanic lands and economic viability from this beautiful product. Our cashews are handpicked from Organically Certified trees in Eastern Flores. The cashews are “cracked” open with traditional knives and hand-polished to remove the “kulit ari”, a thin skin protecting the kernel. The result is a truly raw cashew kernel so incredibly sweet, soft and white that you simply won’t believe your tastebuds!
More profit for growers means greater pride of product and more focus on the maintenance, harvest and post-harvest handling of these wonderful nut. Indirectly it also means happy eating for all our wonderful customers throughout the world !
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Above : cashews on the Isle of Flores |
Following this traditional process of hand-processing cashews is a labor of love that has nearly disappeared around the globe. The growers on average can only process relatively small volumes of raw kernels daily, however the product is vastly superior to anything else on the market and therefore they can demand a substantial premium for their really raw cashews. And the difference between raw and conventionally processed cashews is unmistakable.
By reinvigorating the market for raw cashews we are able to keep the high value work of processing “on-farm” and greatly increase the compensation that cashew growers receive for their efforts.