Since 1989, we have built exceptional cashew sourcing networks across Asia and Africa. Dedicated teams work in farming communities all year round, providing timely insight on raw cashew nut quality and crop profiles. This is enhanced by long-term relationships with large grower, cooperative and local trader networks, minimizing the risk of supply interruptions for our customers.
As cashew supplier we have been running economic, social and environmental impact programmes for several years in Africa. Today, through our sustainability strategy Cashew Trail, we are supporting thousands of farmers in countries including Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana with many of these programs under a flagship sustainability sourcing solution - AtSource, which is powered by Olam. Because we work with the farmers and cooperatives, we can also offer fully traceable Organic and Fairtrade cashews.
Find out more about our goals and targets under Cashew Trail.
In India and Vietnam, we run fully-mechanized processing facilities that operate under superior safety and hygiene parameters. At the same time, we are pioneers in transferring the experience, skills and technologies to our cashew processing operations in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria.
We have shortened process times, minimised control points, and incorporated precision grading and sorting to deliver more consistent quality cashews, customised cashew grades and ingredients as well as Kosher and Organic-certified varieties. Most of our facilities are HACCP and BRC-certified, enabling us to offer our customers full traceability to international standards.
We are the largest cashew processor in Africa. Our efforts to process raw cashew nuts where they are grown is appreciated by governments, customers and other agencies. In addition to providing large-scale employment opportunities, we also run health campaigns, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention initiatives, adult literacy programmes, productivity-based incentive schemes, as well as annual and cultural celebrations with the view of effectively engaging our workforce. Our processing units are based in rural communities and principally offer opportunities for women to directly earn cash incomes.
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How do you differentiate between the environmental impacts of organizations across different geographies, local conditions, products, local regulations etc.?
For several years, ofi has been working towards assessing the true value (cost or benefits) of some of our operations on the ground. Our latest case study on Natural Capital Valuation: Assessing Natural Capital costs in coffee operations, delves into year-on-year monetary impact of our select coffee growing operations in five origins.
Globally, an estimated 12.5 million to 25 million smallholder farmers depend on the coffee industry for their livelihoods, according to figures from Fairtrade1 and the FAO2. However, the majority of these farmers face significant challenges including limited access to formal agronomy training, inadequate resources, small farm sizes and insecure land tenure. These factors often hinder the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, which are crucial for preserving Natural Capital over the medium and long term. As a result, coffee production often imposes a cost on nature in the form of GHG emissions, degradation of soil structure and fertility, depletion of ground and surface water, and loss of natural ecosystem services critical to agricultural production.
To address these challenges, we employ Natural Capital valuation techniques, which leverage environmental economics to assign a monetary value (US$) to our impacts and dependencies, encompassing carbon emissions, water usage and ecosystem services. Quantifying Natural Capital in this way enables us to assess and mitigate risks while fostering investments that promote a positive impact on landscapes and ecosystem.
We evaluated twenty AtSource+ coffee farmer groups sourced from five different origins3 to assess their GHG emissions and water use related Natural Capital Costs (NCC). Reporting on the NCC is based on each metric tonne of product which makes the cost intensities very sensitive/ dependent on farm level yields. Thus, understanding the underlying yield dynamics is also crucial for interpreting these NCC footprints effectively.
The combined expertise of our local sustainability teams with partners such as Funcafé, TechnoServe, Côte d’Ivoire's National Nutrition program, USAID (United States Agency for International Development), and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) delivers solutions to improve access to clean water, healthcare services and supplies, and nutritious food.
Initiatives range from using geo-location to identify and screen for infant malnutrition in farming communities in Côte d'Ivoire - where one in five children experience stunted growth and development - to fortifying key staples with vitamins and minerals in our processing facilities.
Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems (CLMRS) have become increasingly valuable in helping us understand and tailor our interventions. They help us identify children at risk of, or in a situation of child labour, so that we can engage with families to improve and enable school attendance through training and facilitation of necessary certificates for example.
Drawing on best practices by the Fair Labor Association and the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), CLMRS has been scaled up to cover all nine of our direct cocoa sourcing countries, coffee in Guatemala, cashew in Nigeria and 100% of our hazelnut sustainability programmes in Turkey. To date, our CLMRS systems covers over 260,000 farmer households.
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