Sourcing
We buy cashew and macadamia from our farmer groups and process the raw nuts in our factories in order to sell the kernels to the global food industry.
The problem
- 783 million people live below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day.
- Poverty means a lack of food, lack of access to clean water, electricity, schooling, medical care, resulting in high child mortality rate ao.
Although extreme poverty is declining globally, the region of Sub-Sahara Africa continues to suffer.
How nuts can help
- Nut farming provides a solid source of income to African families.
- When the raw material is processed in a local factory this provides work and income to not only factory workers but also a long term off take to suppliers of packing material and equipment.
The opportunity of nuts
- While Africa accounts for 56% of the world’s production of cashews e.g., only processing 5% of the world’s cashews are processed in Africa.
- This represents an enormous opportunity for economic development of Africa. If all African cashews would be processed at source, over 150 larger factories would be required.
- This would generate over 170.000 factory jobs (even considering higher levels of mechanisation) and (based on rule of thumb) another 2.2 indirect jobs in supplying businesses for each of those factory workers.
What we do about it
- Since 1993 Nuts2 is active in the market of nuts and dried fruits. Orignally as a broker, but from 2004 also as an African processor.
- Through the buying of nuts (as opposed to brokering), Nuts2 can apply fair trade conditions and agree fair prices with supplying farmers (4241 in 2018).
- Through it’s investments in own facilities, Nuts2 managed to create both direct and indirect jobs in the local economies of Burkina Faso and Benin. In 2018 the factories employed 1540 factory workers.
- 80% of those are female, providing income to families and supporting the independence of women.
Supporting local farmers
- Nuts2 aims to work with farmer groups as it helps to efficiently connect and source from hundreds of farmers. Farmer groups help to establish a relationship and a reliable source of raw cashew nuts. Farmer groups function as communities to exchange best practices between farmers, share resources like transportation vehicles, warehouses, nurseries.
- To support farmer groups to improve their living income, we have years of intensive cooperation with the Dutch development organisation Woord en Daad and consultancy firm Fair Match Support. This strategic partnership provides for farmer training to increase the yield per tree. Furthermore farmers are supported in obtaining both organic as well as fair-trade certificates, which result in premium prices to the farmers, as they are paid in Western markets.
Anatrans
Anatrans (a Nuts2 company) is our processing facility in Burkina Faso.
More pictures and videos can be found on:
including a cool 360 degree video, best watched on smart phone. Take a look around you in the field and in the factory!
Job creation
- Our factories Afokantan (Benin) and Anatrans (Burkina Faso) are gradually growing their operation. Anatrans has increased it’s capacity from 6.000 to 8.000 Mton in 2019.
- This year we are working on projects to further expand our footprint.
- In this last season, we have seen significant growth in the supply of locally processed nuts from our African partners, partly as a result of growing volumes from existing local factories, partly from newly built factories; in Ivory Coast in particular.
- How we protect our workers from the caustic CashewNutShellLiquid? Read this post here.
Factory jobs
“I have been working with Afokantan, since 2014. I am responsible for quality control of both raw cashew nuts and kernels. From my salary, I can provide for my 4 children and they all attend school. Furthermore I am blessed to be able to rent a house with electricity.” – Edmond Tchongo
“My name is SEGBOZO Serge, I’m one of the Electricians since 2018 . I’m father of 2 children. I’m happy for working with ABC because through my salary, I take care of my family and my parents.” – Serge Segbozo
“My monthly salary enables me to pay my children’s needs but besides that, what I love the most are my colleagues at Anatrans. We have become members of the same family. We meet regularly for ceremonies, for weddings… We always gather together, and I love it.” – Belem Abibata
“I was hired in 2015 as a worker at Afokantan Beninese Cashew. Since 2019, I’ve been promoted to Shelling section manager. I am happy to work at ABC as I have been able to take care of my family, with my salary.” – Jean Claude Yoa
