You probably know about cashew nuts, but have you ever wondered where they came from? These nuts are actually from cashew apples, also known as 'cashew fruits'.
These fruits are most-often discarded when harvesting the cashew nuts, despite their nutritional profile and exotic flavor. Casju wants to upcycle these cashew fruits and are making delicious plant-based cashew fruit caramels.
More than half of all the globally consumed cashew nuts are grown by african small-scale cashew farmers. This means that each year, more than 16 million tons of cashew fruits are wasted on the African continent.
Imagine if these cashew farmers could increase their income and create local jobs, just by utilizing this resource that is already there?
Casju’s mission is to start upcycling these fruits, increasing the value of cashew farmers' crops and creating local jobs. Casju supports the local harvest and processing of the cashew fruit. The fruits are highly perishable and need to be processed the same day as they are harvested. The fruits are turned into a fruit-paste which is shipped to Denmark for further processing into other value added products, such as juices, bars icecream flavor and the caramels of course.
The first application of the cashew fruit ingredient are the plant-based cashew fruit caramels. This product has a high acceptability among the danish consumer, and will educate them on the current waste of these fruits.
Currently, we have carried out pilot projects with upcycling cashew fruits at cashew factories in Ghana and Tanzania. On the sites, we work with local partners. These areas have staggered seasons, making it possible to source the fruits a greater part of the year.
