OUR VALUE CHAIN

PROCUREMENT

Our profound knowledge and experience help us to consistently procure high-quality produce from growers and aggregators who cherish the long term relationship we have cultivated over the years.

Alphonsa is one of the largest direct procurers of raw cashew nuts at the farm- gate level on the actual-user basis with a unique procurement footprint spread across West and East Africa. Direct procurement at the farm-gate level was a natural step for us to secure our supply chain and to establish consistent quality standards for our cashew kernels. In line with our vision to vertically integrate our business and to create one of the most comprehensive traceability systems in the cashew industry, we started our Direct Procurement Programme in 2010 with our first procurement centre being set up in Sampa, one of the most prominent cashews producing region in Ghana. This was followed by us expanding our direct sourcing footprint to Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Tanzania and Guinea Bissau. Direct Procurement Programme is an initiative where our expert team of buyers supervises all procurement and quality-related activities at the origin.

Spirit of cooperation.

Our procurement business is deeply rooted in the spirit of cooperation that guides our relationship built on trust and principle of shared success with growers, aggregators, cooperatives and suppliers. We consider them as salient partners in our business. Our team of buyers at the origin regularly visit the smallholder farmers and take the time to get to know them and their families, resulting in a strong bond between our people and the farmers. We are committed to ensuring that all our raw cashew nuts are procured sustainably and responsibly in a way that respects both people and the environment. We work in partnership with our local growers and suppliers at farm-gate to transform the way we procure and create value for all the stakeholders in the value chain. Our primary goal is to secure our supply chain while embodying trust and confidence in our sourcing relationship.

Finest quality cashew kernels with superior sensory properties mostly depend on the quality of the raw cashew nuts. While there are around 20 cashew producing origins, we have limited our direct procurement to 6 master origins that offer some of the most exceptional raw cashew nuts in the world. Our trained and experienced procurement team at origins work with growers and aggregators to source the finest quality raw cashews, a craft mastered by our team of buyers.

Farmer Management System (FMS) is a cloud application that comes under the sphere of our Procurement Management System, a powerful gamut of applications that is the prime enabler of our Direct Procurement Program giving us and our customers complete visibility over the supply chain. FMS has been built in-house using a comprehensive framework that includes metrics from Sustainability and Responsibility parameters including Food Safety, Social, Environment, Labour, Human Rights and Economic indicators. The system draws insights from our extensive years of experience on the ground in six origins spread across West and East Africa.

Our Direct Procurement Program enables us to develop fully transparent and traceable sourcing networks with full case-level traceability to the raw cashew source.

We offer case-level traceability for our cashew products showing the complete movement along the entire value chain. It is our passion to provide fully traceable cashew nuts to our customers who appreciate knowing where the cashews came from and that their purchase genuinely made a difference to the farmer and his family in the producing origin. We enable our customers to trace our cashew nuts along the value chain back to the farmer through one of the most comprehensive traceability system.

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