From Distant Shores to Kerala's Red Soil : History of Cashews

Cashews are not like any other gift; it's a symbol of rich heritage and history for Indians. Here's the history of how Kerala, Goa, Andhra, Odisha and Karnataka became the largest cashew havens in India. 

Cashews feel unmistakably Indian today, present in festive sweets, wedding feasts, and thoughtfully curated dry fruit gifts. But their story begins far from our kitchens. The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is native to Brazil, where it grew wild long before it entered global trade. Even today, Brazil remains deeply tied to cashew history, while countries like Vietnam and India dominate processing and exports.

Cashews arrived in India in the 16th century with the Portuguese. Interestingly, they weren’t brought for their nut at all. Cashew trees were planted along coastlines as a practical solution to prevent soil erosion and stabilise sandy land. It took local curiosity and time for people to realise that this resilient tree also bore something delicious and nutty.

After the Portuguese, the Dutch active traders along the Malabar Coast helped spread cashew cultivation more systematically across coastal Kerala. Trade routes, ports, and fertile coastal land did the rest of the job. Slowly, cashews stopped being a foreign plant and became part of everyday life.

From Goa, cashews followed India’s coastline almost organically. Goa, the headquarters of Portuguese India, was the first Indian region to see widespread cashew planting. Over time, cashews found their way into Goan food culture and local economies, most notably through cashew-based feni.

From there, cultivation moved south into coastal Karnataka, especially along the Western Ghats. Regions with laterite soil, heavy monsoons, and warm temperatures welcomed the cashew tree with little effort. Farmers often planted it along farm borders and forest edges, valuing it as a hardy, low-maintenance crop.

On the eastern coast, cashews reached Odisha slightly later, introduced during British rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here too, the goal was environmental- reclaiming degraded land and preventing erosion. Over time, tribal and smallholder farmers integrated cashew into their livelihoods, and Odisha emerged as one of India’s largest producers of raw cashew nuts. 

What’s fascinating is that production and processing evolved separately. While states like Odisha and Andhra Pradesh became major producers of raw cashews, processing expertise concentrated elsewhere-most notably in Kollam, Kerala.

Kollam’s rise began in the early 20th century, aided by port access and trade connectivity. In 1925, India’s first organised cashew processing unit was established here. By the mid-1900s, Kollam had become the heart of India’s cashew processing industry, supplying some of the best cashews for export to Europe, the US, and the Middle East. To this day, it is widely regarded as the cashew capital of India.

But Kerala’s cashew story is not just about scale or exports- it’s about people. Cashew processing is detailed, patient work: steaming, shelling, peeling, grading. For decades, this labour has been carried largely by women, making the industry one of Kerala’s earliest sources of sustained female employment. Entire communities grew around this craft, shaping not only local economies but also early labour reforms in the state.

This tradition of careful, hands-on processing is what gives Kerala cashews their reputation for quality. Even today, when consumers search for cashews online or select a premium cashew for gifting, hand-processed grades are valued for their size, texture, and flavour.

It’s this legacy that Tocco builds on. Rather than treating cashews as a commodity, Tocco works with small processing units in rural Kerala, and build kitchens for making the mildly spicy grade W180 cashews empowering women groups. By supporting small-batch processing and preserving traditional methods, Tocco ensures traceability, fair livelihoods, and exceptional quality bringing a deeply regional product to modern homes across India and beyond.

Tocco's premium W180 grade cashews is always processed FRESH in small batches and shipped directly to customers across the world. They can be ordered here.

Culturally, cashews have come to symbolise abundance and celebration. They enrich payasams and biryanis, appear whole in festive spreads, and anchor refined Diwali gifting, wedding hampers, and thoughtful corporate gifts. Few ingredients have travelled so far, adapted so quietly, and remained so closely tied to memory.

From Brazilian forests to Kerala’s red earth, the cashew’s journey reminds us that food histories are shaped by climate, trade, and generations of quiet expertise. And sometimes, all it takes is a handful of cashews to tell a story worth sharing.