We went NUTS today

We traveled two hours north to visit the Cashew processing plant that supplies Whole Foods Markets with bulk cashews. We saw many cashew trees as well as coconut palms along the way. The traffic was not as bad as yesterday because it was a local holiday.

The owner met us and gave us a tour of his plant and packing house. I have a new appreciation for why cashews are so expensive...very labor intensive. The workers are paid by the pound and the average wage is $5.00 a day. The company pays into the government plus Cashew Workers pension programs and employees have medical benefits. They work 13 days and have one paid day off. The most amazing thing he told us was they receive a 21% bonus at Christmas time. The company has a bus that picks up the workers for an 8-5 shift with two tea breaks and lunch break totaling one hour. These workers have above average pay, benefits and working conditions.

Raw cashews are put into a hopper over fire for 2 minutes and mixed with sawdust to remove the oil
They are then caried by "head" to adjacent room for de-husking.


Women prefer to do the old fashioned way by hand but men use machineray to remove the outer shells



After the cashews are dried, they go into the next room for seperating and sizing

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Quality control is the last stop before the packing process that is fully automated

 

Once they are sealed in airtight container, they are boxed and ready to go to US or UK. One year shelf life.

Ready for the container

I was very impressed with the owner and his pride in his people and product. He introduced us to his entire family and treated us to boat ride on one of the many backwater lakes after lunch.



We had lunch at a beautiful new Lakeside resort with lots of interesting art and architecture. It reminded me of some of the resorts in Southeast Asia.


Genie with doorman and goodess at entrance to hotel


Son of the owner on the boat ride

The final stop of the day was to go back into the city to pick up all the new clothes we had made. Tomorrow I will wear my first traditional Indian outfit for our long trip to Agra.