1. The cashew fruits, native to Brazil, was introduced to Mozambique and then India in the sixteenth century, and now it is planted in most Tropical and subtropical regions like South America, East Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Cashew nuts are very nutritious, containing up to 47% fat, 21.2% protein, 22.3% carbohydrates, and still contain A, B1, B2 and other vitamins and minerals, especially the trace elements such as manganese, chromium, magnesium, and selenium. It is rich in amino acids and has the effects of anti-oxidation, anti-aging, anti-tumor and anti-cardiovascular diseases. Cashew apples are rich in Vitamin C and tannin, which is the potential value-added commercial products when proceeding into juice.
2. The cashew fruit has mainly four products: raw nuts, cashew kernels, cashew nut shell liquid(CNSL) and cashew apples. Raw mature cashew fruits can be eaten directly, cashew kernels can proceed into cashew milk cashew butter/ paste, and roasted nut kernel for snacks, CNSL used for the paint oil industry and cashew apples can proceed into juice. The end products like cashew apple juice and cashew nut milk can be filled into small packages with bottles, cartons, metal cans. And the dry cashew nut snacks can be filled into pouches or plastic jars.
3. Cashew fruit processing line mainly includes cashew nut and cashew apple separating machine, cashew fruit washing and cleaning machine, cashew fruit sorting machine, cashew nut deshelling and drying machine, cashew apple crushing machine, cashew nut grinding machine, cashew apple juice extracting machine, cashew nut milk extracting machine, cashew apple juice filter machine, cashew apple juice and cashew nut milk homogenizer, pasteurizer and filling machine, and some auxiliary equipment like CIP cleaning system, RO water treatment system, boiler, cooling tower.
4. Industrializing cashew apples, specifically for the purpose of producing juice, jams, preserves, fermented cashew apple cider jelly and whole or diced dehydrated fruits, is a handy alternative to add value to products and generate income to cashew farmers due to the fact that they can be preserved for months without undergoing any undesirable changes, thus maintaining their organoleptic properties, such as aroma, taste, texture and color, besides, what is most important, their nutritional values are kept at high levels.
5. The capacity of the cashew fruit processing line is from 500kg/h-20000kg/h for clients to choose from. The equipment configuration and technological flowchart is fully customized and flexible according to clients’ capacity and budget.

Cashew apple juice: NFC or concentrated juice can be proceed, NFC juice is 10 Brix can be filled into bottles or cartons for direct consumption, concentrated juice is 60 Brix can be filled into aseptic bags as raw ingredients for cashew fruit juice, sauce production.

Cashew apple cider: Cashew apple juice through alcohol fermentation or acetic acid fermentation, to make into the cashew apple cider or vinegar.

Cashew nut milk: Cashew nut milk is a popular plant-based drink as an alternative to animal milk. The cashew nut after deshelling, washing, drying, grinding, filtering, mixing, pasteurizing and homogenizing, then the cashew milk will be obtained and filling into cans or bottles.

Fresh cashew fruits after harvest, fill into crates and use the truck to transport to the cashew fruit processing plant. Firstly, separating cashew apples from cashew fruits manually, then unloading the fruits from crates to the air bubble washing tank to clean fruits, then lift the clean cashew apples to the inspection sorting conveyor to obtain the high-quality fruits. After that, the cashew apples will be crushed by one hammer crusher, and then sent to the belt press juice extractor to obtain the cashew apple juice. The cashew apple juice can be made into clear juice through clarifying and ultra-filtration process, then the clear juice can be concentrated by falling film evaporator then packed into aseptic bags or directly sterilized/pasteurized, then filled into small packages like bottles.

Cashew nut milk processing is similar to almond milk processing, cashew nuts after washing and soaking in water, then drum roasting or hot oil roasting, until this step, the hard shell and CNSL can be separated from nuts by manually or machine, then we will obtain the kernels, the kernels will be dried and peeled, then the kernels will be soaked into the water to soft, after that, the soft kernel will be grinded by the colloid mill to obtain the paste, after mixing water and other ingredients to obtain the milk, then pasteurizing, homogenizing degassing the milk, and filling into small packages.

This procedure can be done in two different ways:

The first one refers to using a nylon string wrapped around the point where the nut is joined to the apple, which is then pulled up to the point where the nut is cut loose without any tearing to the apple.

Another method is based on using a small manually operated device to extract the nuts by means of a clear cut in the point where the nut is joined to the apple. If this operation is done by turning the nut around, tears in the apple will expose the flesh to microorganisms, resulting in decreased quality and loss of juice during washing and sanitization procedures.

When cashews are brought from the field, they generally have a high microbial load, due to their storage in crates, which are normally contaminated because of contact to the ground, handling, etc. Washing is aimed at reducing the microbial load on the surface of fruits and is done by sinking fruits in sodium hypochlorite solution, or bleach, from 15 to 20 minutes, in a concentration of 200 ppm (0.02%) of active chlorine. Then use the pure water to spray the surface of the fruit to remove the disinfectant solution.  After washed, cashews are then placed on a sorting table, preferably made of stainless steel, from which workers remove rotten, unripe and imperfect fruits. Small imperfections and rotten spots must be removed using stainless steel knives.

The hammer crusher is used for crushing the cashew apple into 3-5mm fruit mashes. The crushing process must be done in a rationalized way, aiming at producing good yields and satisfactory juice quality, free of excessive amounts of tannins.

The belt press juice extractor or screw-type juice extractor can be used for extracting the juice from cashew apple mashes. The juice extractor is made of SUS304 material. Yields of juice produced from cashew apples may range between 60 and 80%. After juice extracting, it is advisable to filter juice immediately after coming from the press so as to eliminate larger fibrous residues before the next step.

The clarification process of cashew juice is carried out in a clarification tank by adding food-grade gelatin.

Commercially available, food-grade gelatin is currently the most efficient product for such procedures. It must be added in the form of watery solution with 10% concentration, that is, the ratio of 100g of gelatin to 900ml of water heated to the approximate temperature of 50 to 60℃. Heating enables gelatin to dissolve in the water, since proteins do not dissolve in cold water.

In order to add the gelatin required for cashew juice to flocculate, a fairly vigorous stirring is needed, however, one must avoid frothing. Then the gelatin container is tilted little by little, pouring a thread of the solution into the juice, which is to be constantly stirred until well-shaped floccules are formed and separated from the supernatant part.

The ultra-filtration system is used for filtering the cashew apple juice, it uses an ultrafiltration membrane core with selective permeation as a separation medium to filtering the solids in the juice. After filtering, the juice will be clear, clarified, colorless, transparent juice.

The concentrated cashew apple juice is aseptically processed, sterilized at 95-98°C for 30 seconds and cooled down to 30℃, at last, the concentrated juice is filled in 6-layer laminated aseptic bags under a sterilized environment by the tubular pasteurizer. With this processing method, the cashew apple juice shelf life can reach 12 months at ambient temperature.

The NFC cashew apple juice will be UHT sterilized(110-120℃ for 15-30S), and then filled into aseptic brick cartons at 25-30℃; The juice can also be pasteurized(75-85℃ for 15S) and then hot-filled into bottles, pouches or cans, after filling into the containers, the juice containers will be pasteurized again by the tunnel pasteurizer or water bath pasteurizer.