The mission is to revive the Mozambican Cashew Nut Processing Industry, to bring it back to the glory it had in the 1970-ties.
As a group of companies, we wish to create many new jobs, to ensure that many families will have a proper income, health care, and to build a strong local economy.  

History of the Mozambican Cashew Industry

The cashew tree originates from Brazil, where it was discovered by the Portuguese colonialists. After the discovery they started to process this product and the Portuguese distributed trees to many other countries. For that reason the cashew tree can now be found in many other regions like Asia (India and Vietnam) as well as in Africa (Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and West African countries).

The history of Mozambique has been strongly influenced by the Portuguese as Mozambique was a Portuguese colony for many decades and even centuries. The Portuguese started up all kind of agricultural businesses in Mozambique. For that reason Mozambique grew to be a very big exporter of cotton, coconuts and bananas. Furthermore and for this report more interesting, is the importance of the cashew nut business. Due to the knowledge of the Portuguese, Mozambique became the leader in the cashew industry during the early seventies. At its peak in 1972 they produced over 200,000 metric tonnes of raw cashew nuts, in 1975 this resulted in a production of 160,000 and they exported 21,000 metric tonnes of kernels, which meant that by that time they were the largest cashew processor of the world. They were not only the largest but they also had a very good reputation on the quality of the product.

But after Mozambique became independent in 1975, the industry collapsed due to the civil war. The civil war lasted for 16 years and ended in 1992. The civil war left the country and the once so flourishing cashew industry totally ruined. The cause for this decline in production can be found in the following three reasons:

• 1. Due to the exile of the Portuguese colonist, and with them the traders, the rural trade system dislocated. The Portuguese left the country and with them all the knowledge of the cashew industry. The factories were still in place but the Mozambicans didn’t know what to do with them. Besides that they didn’t know how to maintain the trees, resulting in a decline at all ends when the war ended.
• 2. Secondly, the government fixed official farm-gate-prices. These prices were below market level to benefit the local processors but as a result of that it became a very low incentive for the rural growers, what made it no longer interesting for the rural population to clean the trees and harvest the cashew nuts.
• 3. And finally, the war left a big part of the rural population dislocated.