AgDevCo

 

Salma Seetaroo never imagined she would end up running a cashew business. But in 2018, while advising on the purchase of a failed cashew factory near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, she saw a bigger opportunity: meeting Europe’s rising demand for vegan foods with food-safe West African cashews, a staple dairy substitute in the plant-based industry. Believing in African excellence, she took the leap.

Cote D’Ivoire grows nearly half the world’s cashews but was exporting most of them raw to Asia for processing, sending jobs and profits overseas. The finished product was then being shipped half-way back around the world to markets in Europe and the USA.

Determined to change this, Salma become an entrepreneur. Appointed as CEO, and with a substantial ownership stake in the company, she developed a model that is simple in design and hard in execution—sourcing from smallholders, processing at origin, and delivering fresh, fully traceable cashew kernels to Europe in weeks rather than months.

Almost a decade later, having doubled the factory’s capacity and now selling to major supermarket chains across Europe, Cashew Coast is proving that local processing with a disciplined emphasis on quality can shift jobs and value back to Africa.  

In this Q&A, Salma reflects on why partnering with AgDevCo has been important to Cashew Coast’s recent growth.

Why do you value AgDevCo as your investment partner of choice?

"Our partnership with AgDevCo reflects what we stand for as a company. I grew the business from 2019, always striving to make it bankable from a commercial and impact investment perspective. AgDevCo's backing in 2024 validated our efforts. We wanted to work with impact investors that understand agriculture and its patient nature, and we felt that this patience was reflected in AgDevCo's values. We opted for longer-term, reasonably priced debt that would reflect the profile of our agricultural product, but this was not available from local bank markets which offer shorter tenure. So, for these reasons we partnered with a specialist investor that understands agriculture in Africa and in particular francophone West Africa where we operate."

How has the investment impacted your business growth and strategy?

"The impact has been fantastic. AgDevCo's investment went into growth and expansion capital expenditures, which allowed us to pursue our market-led approach and meet our clients' demands. Our USP is traceability. We offer organic products, but some supermarkets in Europe were asking for conventional traceable product at a premium. To meet these demands we had to expand both our machinery and ability to buy raw nuts from farmers—this is where AgDevCo's investment was important. Our business model is unique in that we guarantee the minimum government price to the farmer, and we try to remove volatility from both farmers and clients. So, we are continually challenged but AgDevCo's investment is helping us pursue this focus."

Beyond capital, what value has AgDevCo brought to your business?

"The AgDevCo team has a deep understanding of the francophone legal framework and the realities in which we operate. The team understands risk and assesses possibilities on the ground. Our relationship with AgDevCo goes beyond closing the deal and we really appreciate this—we feel that we have a partner and not just a lender. We see AgDevCo as part of the core team when it comes to growth and deciding the way forward. We have strengthened financial expertise, market access and the interconnection with other players and investees, which create avenues for opportunities."

Do you have examples of measurable impacts that show the value of your partnership with AgDevCo?

While meaningful agricultural impact takes time to materialise, we are already seeing early changes following the launch of the conventional traceable project. With AgDevCo's assistance in enrolling farmers, we grew from 8,000 to 12,000 farmers in 2024. I should also mention AgDevCo's technical assistance fund. This fund is allowing us to set up an experimental farm where we will test various parameters, such as cashew variety, spacing, irrigation and fertilisation, and assess what is economically viable from a smallholder’s perspective. And if we can solve this question, working with AgDevCo, then we have solved a massive problem for the sector, and the impact could be significant and extend across our supply chain.

How do you see this partnership evolving in the future?

"Ultimately, we want to continue working with AgDevCo as the financial firepower behind us to help make Cashew Coast a label across Africa. We are a business that truly represents sustainable cashew farming, and with AgDevCo's support and guidance, I believe we can roll our model out across Africa for the benefit of farmers and the continent more broadly."

Further details on Cashew Coast are available at https://cashewcoast.com