(Ecofin Agency) - • Burkina Faso is building a CFA6.65 billion ($11.5M) cashew plant in Péni, set for 2025.
• The facility will process 5,000 tons annually, producing juice, wine, vinegar, and alcohol.
• Only 10% of cashew harvests were processed in 2024 despite higher installed capacity.

Burkina Faso, one of the premier cashew producers in West Africa, is looking to strengthen its processing sector, an area ripe with investment opportunities for value addition. A new processing factory will bolster the cashew sector in Burkina Faso, with operations set to begin in 2025. The construction of the new cashew processing unit, based in Péni within the Hauts-Bassins region, was kickstarted by President Ibrahim Traoré on May 22.

The project, costing a total of CFA6.65 billion ($11.5 million), is spearheaded by the Burkina Faso Council for Agropastoral and Fisheries Sectors (CBF). The new factory will process 5,000 tons of cashews annually to produce a range of derivatives, including juice, wine, vinegar, and alcohol.

Authorities anticipate the unit will be operational by December 2025. The increased processing capacity is expected to optimize cashew apple production and provide farmers with an additional income source.

Each year, the unit will spend over CFA500 million ($867,000) purchasing cashews from producers, an exceptional opportunity given that nearly all of the 400,000 tons of cashew apples produced annually in Burkina Faso go to waste or are underutilized because of a lack of processing infrastructure, according to a 2019 sector assessment study by the Study, Training, and Development Consulting Center (CEFCOD).

The diversification of cashew apple-based products demonstrates the government's desire to maximize the value of this long-neglected resource, especially as cashew almond production, the main transformed product in the cashew sector, continues to struggle to expand.

As per independent trade advisory firm N'kalô, Burkina Faso only processed 16,000 tons of cashew nuts in 2024, around 10% of its annual harvest, despite having a processing capacity for 30,000 tons since 2021, as per official data.

"By developing local industrial processing units, the country is embarking on a process towards inclusive industrialization, food sovereignty, and reduced import dependence. Through this initiative, the CBF reaffirms its commitment to make local processing a linchpin of economic development and a lever for the country's agro-industrial self-sufficiency," reads a statement from the CBF’s website.

Note that cashew shells, like cashew apples, are another under-utilized byproduct of the cashew sector. The Burkina Faso cashew sector generated approximately $111 million in export revenue in 2024, largely due to shipments of raw nuts, as per data compiled from the Trade Map platform.