Cashew apple in Tanzania: status of utilization, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable development

Benefits of cashew apples

There are several feasible usages of the cashew apple (Table 1), which if sufficiently exploited could help in part achieve the goals of the FYDP III and TDV 2025. For instance, in the arena of food and nutrition security, the FYDP III looks to reduce the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency among children aged 6-59 months to less than 20 percent, the proportion of women aged 15-49 years with anaemia from 44 to 22 percent, and reduction of acute malnutrition by year 2025, among others. The same micronutrient challenges were addressed by the Tanzania Demographic Health Survey 2010 (URT, 2011). Increasing public awareness on the health benefits of cashew apple could increase their consumption (raw or processed form) and hence reduce a prevailing health burden. With regard to industrialization, the FYDP III emphasizes on value addition in agriculture through the use of science, technology and innovation as well as research and development. Since huge postharvest losses impact nutrition (especially on micronutrient deficiencies), the NPHMS outlines strategic interventions including facilitation of awareness on postharvest management, value addition, and improving agricultural marketing infrastructure to reduce losses particularly on perishable crops such as fruits and vegetables. For these reasons, cashew apple provides a diversified quality of products for domestic and export market, and hence stimulates socio-economic development.

Equally important, there is a severe unemployment burden in Tanzania, particularly among young people. A large segment (75 percent) of Tanzania’s population is under the age of 35 years. This young generation faces a great challenge to land employment immediately after finishing their qualifications. Statistically, out of one million young people, only 20 percent get employed immediately. In line with the FYDP III, an entrepreneurship approach is the feasible option to solve youths’ unemployment burden. Establishing and strengthening the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is critical due to the fact that, SMEs utilize locally available materials and have the potential to engage many people especially youth, women, and people with disabilities. There are many SMEs processing cashew nuts in cashew producing regions such as Mtwara, Lindi, Tanga, and Pwani, while not the same can be said about cashew apples. With the aforementioned benefits, cashew apple presents greater opportunities for researchers, politicians, investors and farmers to exploit its potentials, and ultimately drive forward national economy.

Quality and utilization of raw cashew apples in Tanzania

Based on a recent study by Msoka et al. (2017), Tanzania’s cashew apple varieties are of considerable good quality. A study revealed a good quantity of valuable components such as vitamin C, carotenoid (provitamin A), sugars, polyphenols, dietary fibers, and minerals such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium as well as low quantities of phosphorus, iron, and zinc. These ingredients make cashew apple a perfect raw material in food, energy, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and biochemical processing industries. From a health perspective, vitamin C, carotenoid, and polyphenols have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, thus provide cashew apple an ability to reduce, prevent, or treat a number of chronic diseases such as scurvy, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Since this fruit has a vitamin C content almost five times that of orange or mango, it can be used in food fortification and formulation. Furthermore, presence of sugars, dietary fibers, and minerals make cashew apple a perfect microbial substrate in different fermentation processes to produce value added products such as ethanol (as food drink or energy), organic acids, and bio-surfactant.

A field survey was conducted in major cashew producing regions i.e. Mtwara and Lindi to obtain insightful information regarding the utilization aspects of cashew apple (Dimoso et al., 2021). The study revealed that the majority (98 percent) of cashew farmers consume raw cashew apples, with 62 percent consuming more than five fruits a day and about 56 percent consuming almost every day during the fruit season. However, farmers’ knowledge on the importance of eating cashew apple seemed limited. As a matter of fact, the majority of consumers (53 percent) claimed to eat cashew apple just because it is a fruit. In addition, few respondents seemed to acknowledge the contribution of fruits such as cashew apple to human health. Moreover, nearly 44 percent of farmers traditionally process cashew apple into porridge (traditionally called Mkongohu) and alcoholic drinks namely wine (traditionally called Uraka) and distilled liquor (traditionally called Nipa). With respect to challenges, lack of knowledge on postharvest handling (86 percent), and inadequate processing technologies (83 percent), among others were mostly claimed to hamper the utilization.

Current modern processing and opportunities of cashew apple in Tanzania

Recently, Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) has formulated dried fruit slices and juice products from cashew apple (Dimoso et al., 2020). The formulated cashew apple products were deemed acceptable with respect to nutrient retention, shelf-life stability and sensory properties. Similarly, Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) - Naliendele and Ndanda Mission have also been developing cashew apple juice, jam and wine (UNIDO, 2011). However, a commercialization stage of the aforementioned prototypes is yet to be attained.

It is apparent that, while few food products have been already developed, other value-added products for sectors such as bio-chemical, energy, and pharmaceutical industries remain unexplored. The current situation provides an opportunity for stakeholders to venture in cashew apple value chain. Therefore, the initiatives for product development and commercialization of cashew apple value-added products need to be formulated and implemented. This will foster the sustainable existence of cashew apple products in the market.

Value addition through agro-processing of highly perishable crops such as fruits and vegetables should be emphasized. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade survey 2013, there were only 17 fruit processing units in a country, of which none is for cashew apples (URT, 2019). Shortage of fruit processing industries account largely for the reported huge postharvest losses of such commodity. In this regard, the NPHMS has the following strategic objectives, among others that could benefit the cashew apple value chain: (1) promote availability, accessibility, affordability and adoption of tested technologies and processes to reduce post-harvest losses; (2) promote research and innovations of new and appropriate technologies and methods to reduce crop losses; (3) facilitate agricultural marketing systems to improve market access and minimize post-harvest losses. Likewise, value addition, food fortification and formulation, technology development and transfer, and commercialization of local agro-products are among the top research priorities outlined by the National Research Priorities 2021/22-2025/26 (URT, 2022) to facilitate human capital development and building of strong and competitive industrial economy.

International evidence on cashew apple processing

The most successful country in cashew apple processing is Brazil. This country has about 12 different cashew apple juice processing industries alone, while others sell fresh fruits, dried fruits, jam, wine, confectionaries, and animal feeds. Equally important, the Brazilian Agricultural Promotion Agency (EMBRAPA) is the leading actor in cashew apple value chain. For instance, it developed a cashew apple variety that can remain on the ground for 1 day without being damaged or beginning to ferment. On the contrary, Tanzanian varieties are very soft and get damaged once they fall on the ground, hence they require immediate processing and/or a cold chain facility for distant transportation or long-term storage. In addition, limited access to a sustainable cold chain for perishable crops (fruits and vegetables) is a dominant challenge not only in Tanzania but the whole region of Sub-Saharan Africa (Makule et al., 2022). India has also progressed in developing cashew apple products, however, their commercialization is still a challenge.

However, in West African countries such as Ghana, Benin and Guinea-Bissau, there is little effort regarding cashew apple usage (Monteiro et al., 2017). Benin and Ghana have started producing and marketing cashew apple juice, although the sector is still in its infancy (TechnoServe, 2017). According to Yantannou (2017), no country in Africa is processing greater than 1% of its cashew apple production. Therefore, there are greater business opportunities in the cashew apple value chain in African cashew producing countries.

Underlying data

The raw data for the survey conducted by Dimoso et al. (2021) is restricted. Only members of the Fruits and Vegetables for all Season (FruVaSe) project can access the data directly. However, data can be accessed upon request by non-members. Please consult Dr Edna Makule via email (edna.makule@nm-aist.ac.tz) to obtain the data file.

These data are under open access and can be accessed at their respective links/DOI.