Cashew are often regarded as “poor man’s crop and rich man’s food”. They are native to Brazil and India. The area under cashew cultivation is the highest in India. Cashew nut is made up of a fruit in which the kernel is embedded. The real fruit of the cashew is commonly a nut. It is a kidney- or heart-shaped achene, in any normal variety. Its color varies from bottle green to grayish brown (dried fruit). It is attached to the end of a fleshy footstalk or peduncle, which is in fact the receptacle of the flower, that is, broadened and swollen, and forms the false fruit. The nut is composed of kernel and pericarp or shell.

Generally, the processing of raw cashew nuts into edible cashew kernel takes the following steps traditional method: roasting, shelling drying, peeling, grading, quality controls, fumigation and packaging. All these steps have to be conducted with care to obtain good quality and high grade kernels.