Origin
Where Do Cashews Come From?
From a tree native to tropical South America to a shelling plant in southern Vietnam: how a cashew grows, who grows it, and why most of the world’s kernels pass through Vietnam.
Quick answer
Cashews come from the cashew tree, Anacardium occidentale, native to tropical South America. Each cashew is the seed inside a kidney-shaped fruit that hangs below a swollen stalk called the cashew apple. Most raw cashews are now grown in West Africa, with Cambodia, India, East Africa and Vietnam next, and Vietnam shells far more than it grows: it imported 2.94 million tonnes of cashews in 2025, mainly raw nuts, and supplied 89% of US shelled-cashew imports in 2022–2024.
Where do cashews come from? From the cashew tree, Anacardium occidentale, a tree of the seasonally dry tropics that is native to tropical South America,1 with north-east Brazil usually named as its home.2,3 Each cashew is the seed of a kidney-shaped fruit that hangs from the bottom of a swollen flower stalk, the cashew apple.4,2 So yes, cashews come from a fruit, though not from the part that looks like one.
That is where the cashew comes from botanically. Commercially, the answer is a chain across three continents: most raw cashews are now grown in West Africa,2 and most of the shelled cashews the United States imports come from Vietnam.5 The sections below follow that chain, from the flower to the shelling plant, with every figure dated and sourced.
How a cashew grows: the apple and the nut
The cashew tree grows up to 10 m tall.1 It belongs to the family Anacardiaceae, the same family as mango, pistachio and poison ivy.6 What it produces is unusual: a fleshy, fruit-like stalk with the real fruit hanging outside it.
Cashew applequả điều
Cashew nuthạt điều
The order in which the two parts form explains the odd shape. The nut forms first, at the end of the stem; only then does the stem swell into the apple, leaving the nut attached on the outside.7,8 Each apple therefore carries a single nut, and each nut holds a single kernel.9
How fast does a cashew grow from flower to fruit? FAO’s processing manual says the tree flowers for two to three months and the fruit matures about two months after bloom.7 In south Florida, the University of Florida gives 2.5–3 months from flowering to apple harvest.3
The two parts differ a lot in size. The apple is roughly 5 to 11 cm (2 to 4½ in) long;8 the nut is 2.5–4.0 cm long, with a shell about 5 mm thick.7
The apple is also eaten and pressed for juice where cashews grow;7,8 what it is and why it seldom leaves the orchard are explained in the cashew apple.
What climate do cashews grow in?
A grower guide from the cashew research centre of Vietnam’s Institute of Agricultural Science for Southern Vietnam (IAS) sets out the crop’s needs: distinct wet and dry seasons with a dry season of four to six months, a mean monthly temperature of about 27 °C, 1,000–1,500 mm of rain that does not fall during flowering, and altitudes below 600 m.10 In the United States, planting is limited to extreme south Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, because the tree needs a frost-free tropical climate and will not tolerate even short frosts.3
Where the cashew tree came from
Kew gives the cashew’s native range as “Trinidad to S. Tropical America”. The species was published as Anacardium occidentale L. in Species Plantarum (1753).1 Kew’s Plants of the World Online lists the native countries as Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago and Venezuela.11
Within that range, north-east Brazil is the place usually named as the cashew’s home. CBI, the Dutch government’s import-promotion agency, calls the tree “native to north-east Brazil”;2 the University of Florida places it in “Northeastern Brazil in the region between the Atlantic and Amazon rainforests”.3
The tree reached Africa and Asia in the 16th century, when Portuguese traders introduced it to Mozambique and coastal India.8 The English word travelled with it: it comes from Portuguese caju, from the Tupi acajú.9
Which countries grow cashews today
Two data series count the world’s raw cashews, and they do not match. The table puts them side by side, each with its own period.
| Producer | FAOSTAT, calendar year 2024 (in shell)12 | INC, crop year 2024/25 (raw nuts)2 |
|---|---|---|
| World | 4,241,104 t | 5.29 million t |
| West Africa, as a region | not given as a region | 2.71 million t (more than 51%) |
| Côte d’Ivoire | 944,673 t | within West Africa |
| Ghana | 218,575 t | within West Africa |
| India | 794,910 t | 615,000 t |
| Tanzania | 528,262 t | within East Africa |
| East Africa, as a region | not given as a region | 540,000 t |
| Cambodia | not among the five largest listed | 800,000 t |
| Vietnam | 306,185 t | 340,000 t |
| Brazil | not among the five largest listed | 150,000 t |
| Indonesia | not among the five largest listed | 93,000 t |
The two series measure different periods, calendar 2024 against the 2024/25 crop year, and are compiled differently, so neither is “the right number”.12,2 The INC figures are the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council’s, as published by CBI. FAOSTAT was unavailable when this page was written, and its figures were read from a secondary table that matches the shares USDA reports.12
By USDA’s reading of FAO data, four countries grew about 60% of the world’s cashews in 2024: Côte d’Ivoire 22%, India 19%, Tanzania 12% and Vietnam 7%. Brazil, the tree’s homeland, is the only South American country among the ten largest producers, and the United States does not produce cashews commercially.5
Cashews are grown in at least 46 countries. Growing and shelling, though, are two different maps: India and Vietnam are the two largest processors, and African producers export most of their crop in the shell to Vietnam and India.2
Why most cashews pass through Vietnam
Vietnam grows about 7% of the world’s cashews5 but sits at the centre of the kernel trade. The reason is shelling. USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) explains that a comparative advantage in processing efficiency and labour cost led Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania to export large volumes of in-shell cashews to India and Vietnam, where they are shelled and re-exported. Whole kernels sell at a premium over broken pieces, so careful shell-splitting matters.5
Vietnam’s exports began rising in the early 2000s, and it became the world’s largest exporter of shelled cashews and the top supplier to both the European Union and the United States. Its specialised processing centres shell regional production plus large in-shell imports, mainly from Africa.5 Much of that work is automated. CBI reports that Vietnam’s processing runs largely on automatic equipment, while in Africa, where shelling is mostly manual, one worker can cut up to 40 kg of nuts per shift; automatic machines process more than 100 kg per hour.2
The trade figures show the scale. In 2025 Vietnam imported 2,941,858 tonnes of cashews worth US$4.49 billion, up 17.7% in volume, by preliminary customs data;13 the agriculture ministry describes them as raw cashews.14 By volume, 32.9% came from Cambodia, 25.3% from Côte d’Ivoire, 9.7% from Nigeria and 8% from Ghana.15 In the same year Vietnam exported 766,585 tonnes of cashews worth US$5.23 billion, up 5.7% in volume and 20.4% in value.16 Domestic raw nuts cover only a small share of what the factories need: about 12% according to the Vietnam Cashew Association in January 2024,17 and about 10% according to industry figures quoted in January 2026.18
Where Vietnam’s own cashews grow, how its exports break down by market, and how kernels are graded are covered in the guide to Vietnamese cashews.
Vietnam supplies most US cashews
For an American reader, “where do cashews come from” has a short trade answer: Vietnam. ERS reports that US imports of shelled cashews (HS 0801.32) have shifted from India and Brazil, which supplied 80% of the volume in 2000–2002, to Vietnam, which supplied 89% in 2022–2024.5 These shares are by volume, not value.
Over the same period US cashew imports rose from an average of 191.5 million lb a year in 2000–2002 to more than 344 million lb in 2022–2024, roughly 86,900 tonnes and 156,000 tonnes (our conversion).5 In 2024 the European Union (411 million lb, about 186,400 t) and the United States (389 million lb, about 176,400 t) were the world’s two largest importers of shelled cashews, according to Trade Data Monitor figures cited by ERS.5
2025 broke the trend. US shelled-cashew imports fell 29% to 277.3 million lb (about 125,800 t), the first year below 300 million lb in 12 years, and their value fell 20%. ERS points to higher US tariffs on imports from Vietnam, stronger demand in China and the EU, and policy changes in African producing countries on in-shell exports that raised Vietnamese processors’ costs.5 From January to May 2026, imports were 123.7 million lb, up 11% on the year before.5
The pattern is similar in Britain. Vietnam supplied 90% of the United Kingdom’s cashew imports in 2024, and it is the leading supplier to Europe as a whole.2
Why cashews are not sold in the shell
The shell is the reason cashews reach shops as kernels. It holds cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL), a viscous liquid that Vietnam’s kernel standard describes as “poisonous to human”, with anacardic acid and cardol as its main components.4 The liquid sits in a honeycomb layer between the soft outer skin and the hard inner shell.7
Its composition depends on how it is extracted. A 2015 review gives natural, solvent-extracted CNSL as about 60–65% anacardic acid, 15–20% cardol and 10% cardanol; heat-extracted, or technical, CNSL is about 60–65% cardanol. CNSL makes up about 25% of the nut’s weight.19 The New York Botanical Garden describes the shell resin as chemically similar to the irritant in poison ivy, a plant of the same family.6
For that reason, ERS notes, in-shell cashews (raw cashew nuts, or RCN, in the trade) are not sold directly to consumers. Heat treatment by steaming or roasting neutralises the corrosive shell oil before the nuts are split, peeled and dried.5 Commercially, special equipment and roasting remove most of the shell oil before shelling, which keeps it off the kernel.3
CBI describes processing in five steps:2
- 01Prepare
Dry, size, steam or roast
Nuts are dried, sized and cleaned, then steam-cooked or roasted.2
- 02Shell
Crack the shell
Automatic, semi-automatic or manual machines split the shell.2
- 03Peel
Remove the testa
Shelled nuts are dried, then the thin skin is removed by machine or by hand.2
- 04Grade
Sort
Colour sorting, sizing and cleaning.2
- 05Pack
Weigh and seal
Kernels are weighed and vacuum-sealed.2
How Vietnam’s standard defines a finished kernel, and what grades such as W320 mean, are set out in from raw nut to kernel on the Vietnamese cashew guide.
The shell liquid has its own market. CNSL is an industrial raw material, used for phenolic resins and friction materials such as brake linings, and in paints and varnishes.7,6
How cashews are harvested
Cashews are not picked from the tree. When the fruit is ripe, apple and nut fall together and the nuts are collected from the ground; picking from the tree gives a ripe apple but an immature kernel.8,7 FAO puts the most one person can collect at about 50 kg a day.7 After harvest, growers sun-dry the in-shell nuts, mixing them continuously, to around 8–10% moisture.2
The season depends on the hemisphere. North of the equator, in India, Vietnam and West Africa, cashews are harvested in the first half of the calendar year; south of it, in Brazil and East Africa, from September or October to early the following year.2 For Vietnam, three sources narrow that down; each row below is one source’s statement.
| Source | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBI (2026), north of the equator2Jan–Jun · first half of the calendar year: India, Vietnam, West Africa | in season | in season | in season | in season | in season | in season | ||||||
| Vietnamese press, Bình Phước and the Southeast (2024, 2025)20,21Feb–Mar (approximate) · starts in the first days of the lunar new year; most nuts ripe in early March; late March the main harvest | in season | in season | ||||||||||
| IAS grower guide (2015), end of harvest10Apr–May · pruning starts right after the harvest ends: April–May in the Southeast and Central Highlands, June–July on the South Central Coast | in season | in season |
Read together, these sources suggest that in Vietnam’s main growing area the harvest runs roughly from February to April or May, peaking in March.2,20,10 In Bình Phước (Binh Phuoc), the province with close to half of Vietnam’s cashew area, the 2024 harvest began in the first days of the lunar new year, and most nuts ripen in early March if the weather holds.20 In 2025, late March was the main harvest across the Southeast.21
Bình Phước merged with Đồng Nai into a new Đồng Nai province on 1 July 2025.22 The sources, and the geographical indication for Bình Phước cashews, use the former name, and so does this page.
What this page does not cover
This page explains where cashews come from and how they reach the trade. It gives no health, nutrition or allergy information and no advice on eating cashews; the shell liquid is described only as a chemical and as the reason for industrial processing. It gives no instructions for processing cashews at home, quotes no prices and names no suppliers. Grades, growing provinces and export markets are in the guide to Vietnamese cashews. We have not visited farms or factories; every figure comes from the sources listed below.
Frequently asked questions
Are cashews a fruit or a nut?
The part you eat is a seed. It grows inside a kidney-shaped drupe, the cashew tree’s true fruit, which hangs from the bottom of the cashew apple, a swollen flower stalk that is a false fruit. Cooks and the nut trade treat the seed as a nut, and Vietnam’s kernel standard calls the in-shell drupe the cashew nut.
Why can’t you eat a raw cashew?
Cashews are not sold to consumers in the shell. The shell holds cashew nut shell liquid, a caustic oil whose main components are anacardic acid and cardol, chemically related to the irritant in poison ivy. Processors steam or roast the in-shell nuts to neutralise it before cracking them, then dry the kernels and peel off the thin skin.
Can cashews be grown in the US?
Only in a few frost-free places. The University of Florida’s extension service says the tree needs a frost-free tropical climate, so US planting is limited to extreme south Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The US Department of Agriculture notes that the United States does not produce cashews commercially; it imports shelled kernels, mostly from Vietnam.
Where does the US get most of its cashews?
From Vietnam. USDA’s Economic Research Service reports that Vietnam supplied 89% of US shelled-cashew imports by volume in 2022–2024; in 2000–2002 India and Brazil supplied 80%. Many of those kernels were grown elsewhere: Vietnam imported 2.94 million tonnes of cashews in 2025, mainly raw nuts from Cambodia and West Africa, and shells them in its own factories.
Sources
- 1
Kew taxon page with the POWO data: Species Plantarum (1753); native range “Trinidad to S. Tropical America”; tree of the seasonally dry tropical biome, up to 10 m; cashew apple is the thickened pedicel.
- 2
The European market potential for cashew nuts
Product description, INC production figures for 2024/2025 (world 5.29 Mt raw nuts; Cambodia 800,000 t; Vietnam 340,000 t), harvest timing by hemisphere, sun-drying to 8–10% moisture, the five processing steps, and Vietnam’s 2024 share of imports in the UK (90%), the Netherlands (75%), Germany (62%), France (63%), Spain (61%) and Italy (49%).
- 3
Cashew Apple Fruit Growing in the Florida Home Landscape
US planting limited to extreme south Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico (frost-free); fallen fruit spoils within a day or two; commercially, roasting removes most shell oil before shelling. Publication date not shown on the page.
- 4
TCVN 4850:2010 Nhân hạt điều — Specification for Cashew kernels
Replaces TCVN 4850:1998. Definitions §3 (cashew apple as false fruit; CNSL main components anacardic acid and cardol), moisture ≤5% (§5.1.3), Table 2 grades W160–W500 with kernels per kg and per lb. Current validity not confirmed: the national standards register could not be read.
- 5
Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook: July 2026
Section “Lower Import Volumes Pressure U.S. Cashew Market”, pp. 26–27. Vietnam 89% of US shelled-cashew import volume in 2022–2024 (India and Brazil 80% in 2000–2002); 2025 imports 277.3 million lb. Shares are by volume under HS 0801.32 (printed as “8001.32” in the report). ERS calls the shell oil “urushiol”; the scientific sources name anacardic acid and cardol.
- 6
Cashew Tree: Source for Nuts, “Apples,” Even Brake Linings
Family Anacardiaceae, shared with poison ivy, mango and pistachio; shell resin chemically similar to that of poison ivy; apple is the swollen flower/fruit stalk; shell chemicals used in brake linings.
- 7
Small-scale cashew nut processing
Sections 1.2, 2.8, 3.2, 3.3: apple yield 8–10 times the weight of raw nuts; nut forms first, stalk then swells; harvest from the ground; apple keeps only 24 hours after picking; apple ripens before the nut; uses (juice, jam, wine in West Africa, feni in India). Its CNSL share is given as both 15% and 20–25% of the nut; not used for that figure. Health and vitamin statements in §3.3 are not used.
- 8
Used for: Portuguese traders took the cashew to Mozambique and coastal India in the 16th century; apple size 5–11.25 cm; nut develops first; apple and nut fall together when ripe; fresh apples highly perishable; feni in Goa. The online sentence on native range is garbled (“native to and northeast Brazil”) and is not used.
- 9
Used for the name (Portuguese caju from Tupi acajú) and for nuts being more widely traded than apples because the apple bruises easily. The Goa date range 1560–1565 carries a “citation needed” tag and is not used.
- 10
Quy trình kỹ thuật thâm canh và ghép cải tạo vườn điều
Cashew is grown from Đà Nẵng southwards in three regions (Southeast, Central Highlands, South Central Coast); dry season of 4–6 months; first pruning right after harvest ends, in April–May (Southeast, Central Highlands) or June–July (South Central Coast); flowering in the January–April dry season.
- 11
Page blocks automated access (403). Native range and native-country list (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela) read from a search excerpt; the same range is confirmed on Kew’s ColPlanta page.
- 12
[FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products: cashew nuts in shell, production quantity, 2024]
FAOSTAT returned a server error on 2026-10-07. Figures read from the table in Wikipedia “Cashew” (FAOSTAT accessed by its editors 7 June 2026): world 4,241,104 t; Côte d’Ivoire 944,673; India 794,910; Tanzania 528,262; Vietnam 306,185; Ghana 218,575. They match the shares USDA ERS gives in FTS-385 (22, 19, 12 and 7%).
- 13
Statistics of main imports by month: December, 2025
Preliminary. Row 4 “Cashew nut”: 2025 year to date 2,941,858 t, US$4,491,821,290 (+17.7% volume, +39.3% value). The customs line does not split raw (in-shell) nuts from kernels; the ministry and trade press describe the imports as raw cashews.
- 14
Xuất khẩu điều tiếp tục “bùng nổ” vào đầu năm 2026
Citing the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment: 2025 imports of “more than 2.9 million tonnes of raw cashews (điều thô)” worth US$4.5 billion; top markets China, US, Netherlands.
- 15
Xuất nhập khẩu điều vượt 5,6 tỷ USD nhưng nhập siêu 400 triệu USD
Citing the Customs Department: 2025 cashew import origins by volume — Cambodia 32.9% (also of value), Côte d’Ivoire 25.3%, Nigeria 9.7%, Ghana 8%.
- 16
Statistics of main exports by month: December, 2025
Preliminary. Row 3 “Cashew nut”: 2025 year to date 766,585 t, US$5,229,389,219 (+5.7% volume, +20.4% value on 2024).
- 17
Cashew firms propose to expand raw material areas
Citing the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development: 314,000 ha planted in 2023 (−8,300 ha on 2022), 300,000 ha harvested, over 345,000 t; VINACAS: domestic output meets about 12% of processing needs. Its 2023 import figure is not used (conflicts with customs).
- 18
Cashew exports surpass $5 billion for the first time
China overtook the US as the largest market in 2025; domestic raw nuts meet “only about 10 per cent” of processing demand (attributed to industry insiders); imports mainly from Africa and Cambodia.
- 19
Potential Biological Applications of Bio-Based Anacardic Acids and Their Derivatives
Composition only: natural CNSL about 60–65% anacardic acid, 15–20% cardol, 10% cardanol; heat-extracted (technical) CNSL about 60–65% cardanol; CNSL about 25% of the nut’s weight. The paper’s biological-activity content is not used.
- 20
Cashew harvest begins in Bình Phước Province
Harvest begins in the early days of the lunar new year; most nuts ripen in early March if the weather holds; Bình Phước has over 152,000 ha, “nearly 50 per cent of the country’s total area”; districts Bù Gia Mập, Bù Đăng, Phú Riềng, Đồng Phú.
- 21
Đông Nam bộ: Giá điều cao, nông dân thu hàng trăm triệu đồng lợi nhuận
Late March 2025 is the main harvest in the Southeast; the Southeast has over 192,000 ha of cashew, 61% of the national area.
- 22
Nghị quyết 202/2025/QH15 về việc sắp xếp đơn vị hành chính cấp tỉnh
Yên Bái merged into Lào Cai; Quảng Nam into Đà Nẵng city; Kon Tum into Quảng Ngãi; Bắc Kạn into Thái Nguyên; Bình Phước into Đồng Nai (point 17; checked against the hoatieu.vn copy of the text on 2026-10-07). In force 1 July 2025.