Cashews are among the most labour-intensive nuts to bring to market. Understanding why explains a great deal about pricing and about quality differences between suppliers.
The cashew apple and the nut
The cashew tree produces a fleshy cashew apple with a single kidney-shaped nut hanging beneath it. The nut is the commercial product; the apple is perishable and is used locally for juice, preserves and feni where there is a market for it.
Harvest
Nuts are gathered after they fall naturally, which signals ripeness. Harvesting runs roughly February to May in Odisha. Because the fall is staggered, collection happens repeatedly over several weeks rather than in a single sweep.
Drying
Raw nuts are sun-dried to bring moisture down to a level where they can be stored without spoiling. Get this wrong and the whole lot is at risk — under-dried nuts develop mould, over-dried ones become brittle and break during shelling.
Steaming and shelling
The shell contains a caustic resin called CNSL that irritates skin, so nuts are steamed or roasted to make the shell brittle and safer to handle before shelling. Shelling is where cashews differ most from other nuts — the kernel is curved and fragile, and the proportion that comes out whole rather than broken directly determines the value of the batch.
Peeling and grading
A thin reddish testa clings to the kernel and is removed after gentle drying. Kernels are then graded by size and colour. The W numbers refer to whole white kernels per pound: W180 means about 180 kernels to the pound, so fewer and larger. W240 and W320 follow the same logic.
Grading, packing and dispatch
Graded kernels are checked for moisture, colour consistency and foreign matter, then sealed for storage and transit. Because cashews absorb moisture and odours readily, packaging integrity matters as much as the grading that preceded it.
Why the price sits where it does
Between harvest and a sealed pack, cashews pass through drying, steaming, shelling, peeling, grading and packing — several of those steps still done substantially by hand. That labour, plus the breakage rate at shelling, is most of what you are paying for.