This document summarizes the cashew nut processing unit. It details the various steps involved: drying the raw nuts in sunlight for 2 days; boiling for 20 minutes at 90 degrees Celsius; cooling for 2-3 days; cutting and shelling by hand; drying in a hot chamber at 81 degrees Celsius for 8 hours; peeling, grading, cleaning and passing through a metal detector; weighing and packing. The unit uses raw cashew nuts as input and produces cashew kernels as the final product, with cashew shells as the only solid waste output.

1. CASHEW
FOOD PROCESSING UNIT
BY
K. P. VINEETH

2. Raw Materials : Raw Cashews
Various Machines Used : Boiler, Cutting
machine, Hot chamber, Metal Detector,
Weighing machine, Packing machines

3. MANUFACTURING PROCESS
DRYING
BOILING
COOLING
PEELING GRADING
HOT CHAMBER
OR BORMA
DRYING
CUTTING &
SHELLING
PACKING
DISPATCH

4. DRYING
For two Days nuts exposed to sun till they are
dried and then dried nuts are stored in the store
room.
The sun shine drying loss may come to 7% to
8%.
 This increases the cost of raw cashew nut.
The sun light changes color of cashew nut and
turns to brown.

5. Once the color is changed its know that the
cashew nuts are dried.
 This is done to remove the oil contain from
the shell.
Then the dried nuts are filled up in the bags
and are stored in the store room until the next
process begins.
This may be for one day or so depending upon
the stock.

7. BOILING PROCESS
• The roasting of the raw Cashew Nut is done by
steaming roasting process.
• This process is carried on for 20 minutes at 90
degree centigrade.
• Here firewood is used for the process of
generating steam for roasting the Cashew
Nuts.

8. • In this process an estimate 4 cases of 80 Kgs
each are put into vessel and steam is being
released.
• 10 min the steam which we had released will
come out from the door of the vessel.
• After 8 to 10 minutes, we should stop the
steam and door must be opened.
• These raw cashew nuts are roasted.

10. COOLING PROCESS
Once the raw nuts are roasted they are taken
to a separate room and they are being spread
on the floor.
Here they are kept for two to three days so
that they are cooled.
Once they are cooled they are transferred to
the next process.

11. CUTTING PROCESS
The entire cutting process is handed by
women workers.
In one machine two women are working and
they can work around 8 to 10kg cashew nuts
per day.
Then these nuts are fed into the hand
operated cutting machines to separate kernels
from the shells.

13. SHELLING PROCESS
Each cashew shell is split open and the cashew
inside is immediately taken out by hand.
Shelling is a technique that can be relatively
easily learnt. Strength is not required for
breakage of the shell.
Correct positioning of the nut and the ability
to hit the nut in the correct position, so as to
allow its breakage is most important.

14. Quality control and inspection are therefore
critical in ensuring that shells produce kernels
of the highest quality.
During the shelling process the workers use
Castro oil in order to keep their hands safe .

16. BORMA DRYING PROCESS
The Cashew nuts which are cut, are taken to a hot
chamber for Borma drying.
Borma which look like a rectangular box in which
8 stands each with 60 aluminum tray (480 trays)
are there.
They are loading 4kgs of cashew kernels in one
tray (total :1920 kgs in box) and the door is
closed.

17. The shell cake of raw cashew nut is used for
the fuel purpose.
The door is locked & the heat is generated at
81 degree centigrade & it is released to Borma
box for continuous 8 hours.
After that cashew kernels are taken to
separate room for cooling for a day.
This process continues for a whole day.

20. PEELING PROCESS
So major portion of employees are working in
this process. Average peeling to one employee
is 10 kg.
Here the workers remove husk from the
cashew nuts with the help of a small knife.
These are transferred to Grading section very
next day.

21. GRADING PROCESS
This is the process where the cashew nuts are
categorized and they are given different
grades.
Depending upon the grades the rates are
being set.

22. CLEANING AND METAL DETECTOR
In this
process the
cashew nuts
are being
passed in a
machine
where the
dust is
removed out.
Once this is
done the
cleaned nuts
are passed
through the
metal
detector.
This is done
to see that,
there are no
unwanted
particles.
This is the
final process
before
packing.

23. Weighing
• This is done for the purpose of packing.
• Here the nuts are filled in containers, bags
and pouches as per the requirement. once
this done the weighed container are passed to
the next process.

25. PACKING PROCESS
• Packing is an important activity as it contains
the final product. Packing must be done in
such a way that it should convince and attract
the customers to buy the product.

26. TREATMENT
• About 150 Cashew units in and around Palasa
were closed as they were all burning them
earlier causing a lot of Air pollution. But they
all changed their process from Roasting to
Boiling . This has become more profitable as
the cover of the seed is used for extracting Oil
and the Pulp is sold as fuel for industries like
Brick manufacturing units. There is absolutely
Nil solid waste in modern Cashew Industries.

27. • The total water consumption is 4KLD of river
water or ground water out of which 2KLD is as
Boiler feed water and 2KLD is for Domestic
water. It generates about 1KLD of effluent, all
as domestic sewage only and treated by Septic
Tank- Soak Pit system and treated effluents
are used for irrigation and sewage farming in
Green Belt. Most of the industries have 70% of
their area allotted to Green Belts.

28. • A typical Cashew unit uses about 3200 kg/day
of raw nuts as raw material producing
800 kg/day of Cashew Kernels as final product
for packaging. The only Solid waste is
2400 kg/day of Cashew shells which is sold to
‘Oil Expeller Units’.

29. References
• Industrial Water and Wastewater
Management by Dr. KVSG Murali Krishna