Last season, the farmers harvested roughly 100 kilos of fruit a day, which had to be collected immediately from remote orchards that often are draped down steep ravines. (Every kilo of nuts yields five to six kilos of cashew apples.) Roughly 500 small farmers here participated in the Acceso program, selling their apples to it for 2.5 to 3 rupees a kilo. Some three-quarters of the roughly 660,000 tons of nuts grown here come from small farmers with orchards of one to two hectares, or 2.5 to 5 acres.Īcceso is replacing some of that network, buying nuts at a higher price as well as creating a market for what until now was essentially garbage, the cashew apples. Now India is one of the world’s largest cashew producers. The Portuguese introduced cashew trees in the 16th century in the region around Goa, hoping to stem the erosion of rich topsoil that was being washed away by heavy rains. “We work with them to improve cultivation and yields and offer them better prices for their nuts as well as create a market for their cashew apples,” said Govind Ramachandran, general manager of Acceso Cashew Enterprise, the business established by the Clinton Foundation last December to carry out the program in India. Small farmers supply it with chickpeas in Ethiopia and corn and sunflowers in Mexico. To help improve the farming, collection and rapid processing of the apples, Pepsi turned to the Clinton Foundation, which had expressed interest in the company’s efforts to incorporate small farmers into its global supply chains. “That’s a risk for us - we can’t have Tropicana with alcohol in it,” Mr. The big stumbling block, Pepsi learned, to any commercial use was the fruit’s quick fermentation. A local supplier took him to a cashew orchard, where he saw the colorful apples and wondered how they could be used. Pepsi stumbled across the fruit in Brazil a few years ago, when Mehmood Khan, its global head of research and development, was working there to get the company’s coconut water business up and running. But Brazil, a major global source of cashew nuts, processes only about 12 percent of its crop of cashew apples annually because of the challenges posed by their short shelf life, according to research by the African Cashew Alliance, an industry trade group that is also looking for ways to cash in on cashew apples.Ĭashew juice also shows up in various local products around the world like Cashewy in Thailand, which is promoted by its producer as “the beverage of gods.” Nutrition and health websites extol its high vitamin C content, and there are even claims that it helps burn fat and enhances sexual performance. “I thought it was a little strange that they wanted to buy cashew apples - but I didn’t like to question a new source of money,” said Sanjay Pandit, who together with his father, Hanumant Pandit, cultivates about 300 cashew trees in the village of Kondye.īrazilians are the biggest consumers of the yellow and red apples today a handful were featured in FIFA’s advertising for the World Cup. The demanding demographic group known as millennials, as well as new consumers among the world’s emerging middle class, have a restless appetite that is driving food companies to experiment on a grand scale with flavors and ingredients whose appeal until recently were largely local. “So we are always looking for new juices sources that are locally produced to help bring prices down for us and for consumers.” Sarma, vice president for global procurement at PepsiCo India. “Coconut, pomegranate and lime juices are popular, but affordability is becoming a major issue,” said V. This season, however, the carpet will be thinner because Pepsi is betting that the tangy, sweet juice from cashew apples can be the next coconut water or açaí juice. There, the cashew apples, as the stems are known, quickly rot, except for a few used to brew a local spirit called feni that is popular in neighboring Goa. RATNAGIRI DISTRICT, India - When the cashew harvest starts here, the orchards clinging to the lush, wrinkled hills are blanketed by a brilliant yellow, orange and red carpet, created after farmers pluck the nut and toss its stem to the ground.
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