North America Cashew Company: Snapshot

North America Cashew Company (NACASCO) processes raw cashew nuts (RNC) from West African for the production and worldwide distribution of edible kernels and cashew nut shells liquid (CNSL). NACASCO is seeking to build-out a manufacturing facility in the Ivory Coast to increase the post-harvest transformation capacity in that country and reduce the need to export the RCN to India and Vietnam for processing before shipping the edible kernels primarily to U.S. and European consumers.

Irrational and Inefficient
Supply Chain

THE IVORY COAST & THE CASHEW NUT
The Cote d’lvoire (Ivory Coast) government started planting cashew trees in the 1960’s in collaboration with a number of rural communities, originally as a way to improve deteriorating ecosystems due to bushfires and deforestation.

GLOBAL CASHEW SUPPLIER
Today, cashew production has grown to make this crop the 3rd export commodity of the Ivory Coast. In 2017, Ivory Coast exported 711,000 metric tons of raw cashew nuts (RCN) or 21% of the global supply.
 

LACKING POST-HARVEST INFRASTRUCTURE AND HIGH FREIGHT COSTS
However, the lack of adequate post-harvest transformation capacity makes the Ivory Coast export more than 90% of its RCN to Vietnam and India for post-harvest processing before the edible kernels are sold to consumers across Europe and the United States. The Africa (West) to Asia (East) then Asia (East) back to America (West) is an inefficient or costly trade route.  75% of the RCN weight is the shells so eliminating the associated shipping costs will translate into lower consumer costs and increased profit for NACASCO.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

• Additional shipping costs and profit loss for Ivory Coast RCN producers
• Cashews retail at an unnecessary higher prices to offset extra shipping costs to Asi

Post-Harvest
Production Buildout

Key Operational
Infrastructure

CASHEW FACTORY
This unit will process 18,000 metric tons of raw cashews annually, on a 3-8-hour shift basis.

RAW NUTS STORAGE INFRASTRUCTURE
Enough raw nuts will be set aside to meet yearly factory needs. The RCN supply will be purchased during the harvest season and stored to support manufacturing operation for the full year.

CASHEW NUT SHELL LIQUID (CNSL)
NACASCO will establish an extraction and packaging  unit to press the spent nut shells leftover from the main facility’s operation for the production of Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL). The production of CNSL will have the added benefit of reducing the plant environmental impact as it will minimize the amount of waste to landfill while developing an additional revenue stream.

Meet
The Team

Desire Bouagnon
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER & PRINCIPAL
Desire Bouagnon is an American citizen born in the Ivory Coast, a country he knows and understands very well. 

After completing his engineering studies, Desire started an extensive career in manufacturing and acquired a vast executive management experience in Supply Chain from a number of world re-known organizations such the Altria Group, Kraft Foods Group and Campbell Soup Company, to name a few. During his thirty (30) plus years career, he assumed positions of increasing responsibilities in business development, engineering and operations. He held corporate and regional leadership roles for operational excellence and continuous improvement programs and assumed Plant Director positions for these organizations.

Desire’s experience coupled with the knowledge of the Ivory Coast will be of tremendous value to this organization, especially in the early stage of the business development and plant construction. 

Desire holds a Bachelor and Master degrees in Physics from the University of the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and a Master degree in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of New York.