Est. 1952 · Mangaluru, India
From Mangaluru to Global Markets
Explore the ChronicleSince 1952
That is where it began not in a boardroom, but on a factory floor, with a chemistry graduate's conviction and a merchant family's century of knowledge.
Today, Swasti Cashew Industries Private Limited enters its Platinum Jubilee year — 75 years since incorporation, and more than 130 years since Shri Sujir Ramachandra Nayak first traded in the produces of coastal Karnataka from Bunder, Mangaluru. We are a Mangaluru-based company with deep roots in the cashew industry operating commercial warehousing facilities at Konchady and bringing decades of accumulated CNSL expertise to the market. Heritage, trust, and continuity are not words we use lightly. They are the record.
Swasti Cashew carries this legacy forward through the procurement and distribution of premium Cashew Kernels and Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL).
Located in Mangaluru (Mangalore) on the West Coast of India, we remain intertwined with the Indian cashew industry and Karnataka’s storied trading heritage. Visitors and buyers find us at the heart of the region’s commercial activity.
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Three Generations. One Industry. One City.
The story of Swasti Cashew Industries is not a single founding moment. It is a continuous thread stretching from the merchant lanes of nineteenth-century Mangaluru to the warehousing compound at Konchady today — running through a family that has never, across four generations and more than 130 years, moved far from the cashew nut.
The Merchant House (c.1890s–1941)
Shri Sujir Ramachandra Nayak trades in sugar, grains, coffee, pepper and cashewnuts from Bunder, Mangaluru. His sons grow up in a commercial household where the cashew nut is a familiar presence. In 1942, Shri Sujir Pundalik Nayak formalises the family's enterprise as Swasti Produce Co. Ltd. The foundation for everything that follows is already in place.
The Manufacturer (19411969)
Shri Sujir Damodar Nayak returns from Bombay with a chemistry degree and his father's merchant instincts. In 1941, he begins processing cashewnuts — eight bags a day to start. He adopts the oil bath roasting method, begins extracting CNSL, and builds a manufacturing operation that will become, within a decade, one of Mangaluru's foremost cashew exporters.
Continuity and Evolution (1969–Present)
When cashew kernel processing concludes in 1969, Swasti does not close — it evolves. The factory at Konchady transitions to warehousing. CNSL expertise continues to serve the market. The founders' successors — Smt. Mohini D. Nayak, then Smt. Kochikar Varija Pai carry the company forward with steadiness and purpose.
The Craft
The cashew nut is not native to India. Brought by the Portuguese to the Konkan coast in the sixteenth century, it took root so thoroughly in South Kanara that it became inseparable from the landscape and economy of coastal Karnataka.
For the first century of its presence in Mangaluru, the cashew was traded raw kernels with their husks, shipped to European ports. There was no organised processing industry. That changed in the early decades of the twentieth century. And when it changed, it changed everything.
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KCMA Kaju Centennial Summit
In 2025, the Karnataka Cashew Manufacturers' Association convened the Kaju Centennial Summit to mark a century of organised cashew manufacturing in Karnataka. Among those recognised was Shri Sujir Damodar Nayak, co-founder and Managing Director of Swasti Cashew Industries Private Limited, honoured posthumously for his lifetime contribution to the cashew industry.
The award acknowledged what the archive has always shown: that SDN was not merely a successful manufacturer but an industry builder someone who helped create the institutional and commercial foundations on which Karnataka's cashew industry stands. The recognition was received by his family, who carry the company he founded into its Platinum Jubilee year.
The Records That Survived
Not many companies can trace their founding to a specific date and place. Swasti can. The Board of Directors minutes book, the bank-certified export statements, the founding membership register of the Mangalore Cashew Manufacturers' Association — all survive in the family's keeping, as primary sources of a history worth preserving.
Over decades, knowledge of process, material, and trade was built and refined.
This website is an effort to place that record in the open - as a tribute, and as a reminder that the foundations of the cashew and CNSL trade continue to hold relevance even today.