cashew industry

CASHEW FOOD PROCESSING UNIT

BYK. P. VINEETH

Raw Materials : Raw CashewsVarious Machines Used : Boiler, Cutting

machine, Hot chamber, Metal Detector, Weighing machine, Packing machines

MANUFACTURING PROCESS

DRYING BOILING

COOLINGCUTTING &SHELLING

HOT CHAMBER OR BORMA

DRYINGPEELING

GRADINGPACKING

DISPATCH

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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’.

References

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