The Industry
A Crop That Built a Coastline
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 (present-day coastal Karnataka) 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.
Origins
By the 1920s, the first organised processing operations had appeared in Mangaluru. The VITAPACK packing system, introduced around 1925, enabled cashew kernels to be packed in tin containers with carbon dioxide gas — giving them the shelf life that American and European markets required.
The next leap came in the mid-1930s, when two Mangaluru firms independently developed machines for roasting cashew nuts in an oil bath of cashew shell liquid. The oil bath method provided uniform roasting and enabled the extraction of cashew nut shell liquid as a valuable byproduct. In time, processing evolved towards cleaner and more controlled steam-based methods.
When Shri Sujir Damodar Nayak began processing in 1941, he adopted the oil bath method. His chemistry training gave him an understanding of CNSL's industrial potential that most processors lacked. The byproduct became, in time, as important as the kernel itself.
The Process
Raw cashew nuts arrived from East Africa and coastal Karnataka. At Swasti's peak, the factory compound at Konchady held hundreds of tons before each season's processing began.
In traditional processing, raw cashew nuts passed through oil bath roasters, where heat cracked the shell and released cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL), a valuable industrial byproduct. Over time, the industry has evolved towards cleaner, steam-based methods while continuing to value CNSL extraction.
Workers cracked open each roasted shell by hand to free the kernel, then peeled away the thin inner skin. Speed and accuracy determined the grade of the finished kernel.
Kernels were graded by size and quality and packed in 25 lb tin containers, two tins to a dealwood case, and transported to the Bunder docks for loading onto vessels bound for New York, London and other international markets of the time.
Quality Control
After processing, cashew kernels are graded according to internationally accepted standards such as W180, W240, and W320, based on size, colour, and overall quality.
Industrial Raw Material
Cashew Nut Shell Liquid is a naturally occurring phenolic compound found in the honeycomb structure of the cashew nut shell. It is one of the few naturally sourced materials that behaves like a synthetic industrial resin and it has been used as one for over eighty years.
CNSL is extracted during the processing of cashew nuts. The manufacturers and chemists who first recognised its industrial value, and built the expertise to extract, assess, and supply it, laid the foundation for a parallel industrial stream. Swasti Cashew Industries was among them from the beginning.
Today, CNSL remains in use across industrial applications including resins, coatings, and friction materials, along with related derivatives such as Cardanol.
Applications
CNSL-based resins offer strong thermal stability and maintain consistent frictional performance under the high temperatures generated during braking - properties that made them strategically significant during the Second World War and continue to support their use in industrial applications.
CNSL polymers and condensation products are used as acid-resistant paints, waterproofing compounds, insulating materials and anticorrosive coatings. They combine acid resistance, anticorrosive performance, and thermal stability - properties that have sustained their commercial use since the 1940s.
CNSL-modified phenolic resins are used in laminates, foundry applications, and surface coatings. The material's natural origin and performance characteristics have made it increasingly relevant as industries seek bio-based alternatives to purely synthetic compounds.
Printing inks, flooring materials, industrial lubricants, and a range of specialty chemical applications all draw on CNSL's unique phenolic properties. Research into new applications continues globally.
Legacy of Expertise
When Shri Sujir Damodar Nayak began extracting CNSL at his Mangaluru factory in the early 1940s, he was operating at the frontier of the industry. His chemistry degree gave him an understanding of CNSL's industrial chemistry that most processors in Mangaluru at the time could not match.
By the late 1950s, Swasti was supplying 400 to 500 tons of CNSL annually to industrial buyers in New York most of it shipped in bulk tanks in ships' holds. The primary buyer was Irvington Varnish and Insulator Co., New Jersey, who used it for brake liners, insulating varnish and industrial products. European buyers in Genoa were simultaneously developing as a market.
We are exporting this commodity mostly to U.S.A., where M/s. Irvington Varnish and Insulator Co., New Jersey, are the chief buyers. They use this material for manufacture of brake liners, insulating varnish and other industrial products. In fact, we are shipping 400 to 500 tons of this liquid to New York every year.
That depth of engagement with CNSL — in quality assessment, industrial application knowledge, supply chain, and market relationships — is what Swasti brings to the market today. Seven decades is not a claim. It is the record.
We welcome enquiries from industrial users, buyers and industry participants with an interest in CNSL.
Please contact us at info@swasticashew.co.in or call +91 99000 03197.