A decade ago raw cashew nuts were worthless. Some hill people would gather them, shell them and sell them. On a visit to Bandarban in 2010, Shakil Ahmed was surprised to see the nuts. Paying only the cost of collecting them from the orchards, he brought two truckloads of raw cashew to Chattogram and later, with the help of a business he knew in Singapore, exported them to India. On receiving the first consignment, the foreign buyer told him flatly: "Cashew will not be exported from Bangladesh. Forget about exporting them." That failure was how the story of the country's first integrated cashew processing factory began.

In June 2016 Shakil Ahmed set up a factory named Greengrain Cashew Processing Industry at Deilpara in Patenga, Chattogram, with co-entrepreneur Ikram Morshed. They started with just 10 workers. The factory now employs 65 people, 55 of them women, and the number is growing as production rises. Every day processed cashews go from the factory to large hotels and restaurants, and its nuts are also being exported from the country for the first time.

Shakil Ahmed told Prothom Alo that nobody had imagined there could be a large cashew processing factory; many dismissed the idea as madness. He stumbled again and again while setting up the factory but did not give up. Having learned of the venture, the agriculture ministry is now helping too. He said cashew could fulfil the dream of billion-dollar exports from Bangladesh. Because cashew processing is labour-intensive, it also creates jobs, and workers' wages here are lower than in Vietnam.

He gave up a job as a software developer at Senton AB in Sweden to become an entrepreneur. Working as Bangladesh representative for world-famous consumer goods companies did not satisfy him either. And his exports began with failure. How did he find success? Shakil Ahmed told the story sitting in the car on the way to the factory at Deilpara in Patenga.

"I was disheartened the first time. Without giving up, I researched the cashew trade. In 2014 the factory's co-entrepreneur Ikram Morshed told me raw cashew brought from the hills was being sold. I saw it and bought it. Again I approached that business contact in Singapore to export to India. They said they would not take it even for free. Unable to persuade them, I asked them at least to come to Chattogram and see for themselves."

At his insistence, cashew expert Nandakumar finally came to Chattogram for a day from Kollam in Kerala, India. He examined the raw cashew in a warehouse at Majhirghat for three hours straight. After the tests Nandakumar clapped his hands and said: "Something will come of it this time." On his advice the large and small kernels were separated; the large ones were to be exported to Vietnam and the small ones to India. But then a problem arose: buyers in neither country wanted these nuts either.

In the end the Singapore firm took the risk. After the nuts arrived, the first good news came from Vietnam. From then on he kept buying cashew from the hills and exporting it. Up to June 2017, 75 per cent of Bangladesh's raw cashew exports, or $1,223,000 in export earnings, came through him.

As the story unfolds, the car stops in front of Greengrain Cashew Processing Industries at Deilpara, Patenga, where work is in full swing. In the first shed, machines sort small and large nuts, which are then boiled in steam. Once cooled, the nuts go to another shed where women workers process them with concentration. In the first row, a group of women crack the shell of each nut with a hand-operated device. The shells are then placed on a table in front of another group, who use a special tool to remove the shell and separate the kernel.

The separated kernels still have a thin striped skin. To remove it, they are kept in a specialised machine at a set temperature, and in the next step workers peel the skin off by hand. The white cashews are then sorted and packed.

"I have been working here since 2016. The working environment is good," said woman worker Mousumi Akter. Another woman worker, Nasrin Begum, said the work here is not very stressful.

Co-entrepreneur Ikram Morshed said that besides the nuts, machinery has also been brought in to process the shells and extract oil. The oil can be used in enamel paint and could also be exported, and after the oil is extracted the shell powder can be used as fuel. "Now nothing from the cashew is wasted," he said.

Source: Prothom Alo. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.