SAFE CASHEW
TRANSPARENT SUPPLY CHAIN
We are committed to helping consumers around the world choose safe and sustainable cashew with confidence.
Our customers and their consumers care more than ever before about the standards behind the things they buy – including the products, materials and ingredients, at various stages in the cashew value chain.
Transparency in the supply chain is the entire scope of information and derived knowledge about various supply chain actors at different stages of the value chain and processes involved that is available to its participants and other key stakeholders for inference and verification. It is a key driver for improving sustainability, efficiency and stakeholder trust.
From farmers, aggregators and suppliers to processors and retailers, demonstrating the source of cashew and how it has moved along the value chain requires openness and cooperation at all levels across the cashew value chain.
Our presence across the cashew value chain helps us to build a transparent supply chain.
Procurement
Our Direct Procurement Program enables us to develop fully transparent and traceable sourcing networks with full case-level traceability to the raw cashew source.
Alphonsa is one of the largest direct procurers of raw cashew nuts at the farm- gate level on the actual-user basis with a unique procurement footprint spread across West and East Africa. Our profound knowledge and experience help us to consistently procure high-quality produce from growers and aggregators who cherish the long term relationship we have cultivated over the years.
In line with our vision to vertically integrate our business and to create one of the most comprehensive traceability systems in the cashew industry, we started our Direct Procurement Programme in 2005 with our first procurement centre being set up in Sampa, one of the most prominent cashews producing region in Ghana. This was followed by us expanding our direct sourcing footprint to Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Tanzania and Guinea Bissau.
Storage & Transport
Our capability and competitive edge in maritime transport and in-land haulage ensure reliable and timely delivery of raw cashew to our processing facilities and processed cashew kernels to our cherished customers worldwide.
Our storage facilities span across 6 origins and 13 processing locations giving us complete control of the raw cashew stock and help us to mitigate risks in the value chain. We use an integrated transport and logistics model that covers the entire supply chain from transporting raw cashew nuts from up-country farms in Africa to distributing cashew kernels to destination markets worldwide.
We are able to manage and control most of the product journey in-house. The in house management on shipping operations in origin and processing countries allows us to organise and plan every detail of the supply chain. It empowers us to move the cargo as securely and quickly as possible.
Processing
90% of raw cashew we process are procured directly at the farm-gate to ensure the highest quality and complete traceability of the supply chain while rest are supplied by large certified raw cashew trading companies.
We place great emphasis on maintaining the highest standards at every stage of our production processes and are firm believers of responsible processing. All production processes from shelling to grading are done in-house at our own fully-fledged 13 processing facilities, located in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, southern states in India.
Our production facilities are certified with various quality management, food safety, ethical and social certifications by internationally renowned audit firms. We do not outsource any component of the production process at any stage to ensure the quality and safety of cashew kernels thereby ensuring unbroken traceability chain and end-to-end transparency.
Distribution
Our integrated operations spanning across the cashew value chain enables us to have more control over sustainability, responsibility and traceability initiatives greatly helping our customers achieve their goals and exceed compliance requirements.
We leverage our expertise of the cashew value chain to offer our customers the finest quality, thoughtfully sourced and responsibly processed fully traceable cashew nuts helping them grow their market-leading brands. We bring knowledge and information to our customers about cashew crop, origins and seasonal variations keeping our customers up to date about the latest developments in the cashew industry, greatly helping them to strategise and devise plans for their business operations. This is backed by our insights of the global cashew crop refined by an experience of close to six decades in the industry.
Our integrated operations spanning across the cashew value chain enables us to have more control over sustainability, responsibility and traceability initiatives greatly helping our customers achieve their goals and exceed compliance requirements. We are always striving to be ahead of our customer’s objectives, expectations and aspirations ranging from food safety and quality management to sustainability, responsibility and traceability initiatives.
Traceability is the cornerstone of our transparent supply chain.
Our ownership or active presence in every stage of the cashew value chain enables us to develop transparent sourcing networks with full case-level traceability to the raw cashew source. We offer case-level traceability for our cashew products showing the complete movement along the entire value chain. It is our passion to provide fully traceable cashew nuts to our customers who appreciate knowing where the cashews came from and that their purchase genuinely made a difference to the farmer and his family in the producing origin. We enable our customers to trace our cashew nuts along the value chain back to the farmer through one of the most comprehensive traceability system.
Technology is the prime enabler of our transparent supply chain.
Our gamut of purpose-built applications that are deployed on the ground plays a significant role in data gathering and data-derived analysis and inference thereby helping us open up and bring in complete end-to-end transparency to our cashew supply chain.
Our Procurement Management System (PMS) is a powerful gamut of applications that is the facilitator of our Direct Procurement Program giving us and our customers complete visibility over the supply chain.
Farmer Management System, part of the PMS has been built in-house using a comprehensive framework that includes metrics from Sustainability and Responsibility parameters including Food Safety, Social, Environment, Labour, Human Rights and Economic indicators.
Discover more in Food Safety and Transparency
You may also be interested in
