Ghana’s cashew apples get a second life

Sunyani, Ghana – At harvest time in Ghana’s cashew-growing communities, the ground beneath the trees tells a familiar story.

While farmers carefully collect the nuts that will be sold to buyers, the fleshy cashew apples attached to them are often left behind. Within hours, the fruit begins to spoil, turning a potentially valuable part of the harvest into waste.

Ghana is one of Africa’s leading cashew producers, harvesting roughly a quarter of a million tonnes of raw cashew nuts each year. The trees also produce far more cashew apples than nuts and industry officials say most of the fruit is never processed or sold.

For decades, the cashew apple has remained largely outside the market economy. Farmers have had few buyers for the fruit, and without nearby processing facilities, transporting it before it spoils is difficult.

Now, researchers, farmers and industry leaders believe the discarded fruit could become a new source of income for rural communities – if Ghana can build the systems needed to collect, process and market it.

For Francisca Aba Ansah, the opportunity became clear after field visits revealed the scale of cashew apple waste. She is a food post-harvest scientist at the CSIR-Food Research Institute and project lead for MA-CASH, a research initiative focused on expanding value from cashew production.

“MA-CASH basically means Maximising Gains from Cashew Production for Youth Development,” Ansah told Al Jazeera. “The project started by looking at the level of waste in growing areas and the processing options available.”

Working with farming communities, researchers developed products including juice, juice blends, sausages, bagels and other foods made from cashew apples.