Family of ACA Seal-Approved Processors Grows and Strengthens

The ACA Quality and Sustainability Seal Program is setting standards for African processors as a way to attract international buyers and to reduce in-factory costs.  As the first internationally recognized “stamp of approval” for cashew nuts, the ACA seal will help bridge the gap between the production line and the consumer’s demands for quality and social benchmarks. Specifically, the Seal program encourages processors to 14 different food safety/quality areas, including infestation, foreign materials, clumping/blocking, and taste.  Additionally, the seal ensures that facilities meet global social compliance standards and local labor laws.  The Seal program comes alive in the processors who work to meet these standards and improve their plants, in advisors from the African Cashew Alliance who visit processing factories throughout Ghana and Africa, and in the community of ACA African processors that are always willing to share their knowledge and experience.

Cajou Espoir Meets the Marks in Togo

The African Cashew Alliance is excited to welcome another cashew processor to this dynamic family of ACA Seal-Approved companies.  Cajou Espoir joins the elite group as the sixth processor in Africa, and the fourth in West Africa.  The processing facility has been in operation for eight years in Tchamba, Togo, however it only recently began scaling up processing capacity.  It is the first ACA Seal Approved processor in Togo and has been contributing to the expansion of the country’s installed processing capacity since its inception.  Cajou Espoir has been an ACA member since 2008, and originally sought out ACA’s help for technical assistance and business linkages, following the ACA conference in Cote d’ Ivoire.  The company expects to process 3,000 Tons of raw cashew by end of the 2013 season and currently employs over 600, mostly female, workers from rural Togo. 

The facility was provisionally approved during a visit from the ACA Quality & Food Safety Seal and Business Advisory technical team, Jim Giles, Peter Nyarko and Sunil Dahiya back on in late September, 2013.  Peter Nyarko returned to the facility from the 28^th-29^th confirm  that  Cajou Espoir’s manufacturing operations comply with the standards required for the ACA Seal.  Cajou Espoir demonstrated enough evidence to indicate their compliance to the SEAL standards, confirming their  place amongst  an  elite group of SEAL-approved factories  on the African continent.  While demonstrating excellence in their processing operations, Cajou Espoir also maintains a social emphasis in their work: Every year, a portion of the earned profits are re-invested in a community project. This could be a school or a community center, and the decision is made by the factory’s workers who will benefit from it.

Upholding the Standards

In mid-November, Mim Cashew and Agricultural Products, Ltd. (MCAP), located in Mim, Ghana became the second ACA Seal Processor to be re-approved.  The company was established in March 2008, and was the first cashew processor in Ghana to be ACA Seal approved in 2012. From the 11^th-14^th of November, ACA SEAL Coordinator Peter Nyarko conducted an audit to reapprove MCAP: The objective of the audit was to assess whether MCAP was still complying to the ACA SEAL standards for Quality, Food Safety and Social responsibility after a year of implementation. MCAP demonstrated compliance with all the ACA SEAL standards, and was therefore re-approved, maintaining their status of ACA SEAL-approval.  Earlier this year, Tolaro Global in Benin became the first ACA Seal Re-approved processor, and the ACA is hoping to re-approve it’s other three seal-approved processors in the first half of 2014.