Globalisation is nuts

The lowly cashew is globalisation in a nutshell. The route from cashew tree to tasty snack follows a peripatetic journey. More than half of the world’s cashew nuts are grown in African countries. Most are exported raw, mainly to Vietnam, for shelling and sorting, before being exported again as processed kernels. Often the nuts munched by Americans or Europeans have travelled more than 20,000km.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “The kernel of an idea”

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