A US Importer's Pre-Payment Checklist for Raw Cashew Shipments

If you're a US buyer sourcing raw cashew nuts (RCN) out of Ghana, you're already an outlier. Almost all of Ghana's raw cashew crop moves to India and Vietnam — India takes around 62% and Vietnam around 37% — because that's where the processing capacity sits. The EU, UK and US mostly buy finished kernel, not raw nuts. That imbalance matters before you even get to paperwork: contract templates, inspection routines and even the language sellers use are built around Indian and Vietnamese buyers, not US ones. You'll need to ask for things explicitly that a Mumbai trading house would take for granted.

This guide walks through what to check and lock down before you release payment, why raw cashew pricing works differently from most agricultural commodities, and where the gaps in standard paperwork tend to bite a first-time or occasional US buyer.

Why KOR, not weight, sets the price

Raw cashew nuts aren't priced simply by the ton. They're priced against the Kernel Outturn Ratio (KOR) — the weight of edible kernel that a fixed weight of raw nuts is expected to yield, conventionally expressed as pounds of kernel per 80kg bag. Two lots that weigh the same can be worth very different amounts if one shells out more usable kernel than the other.

For a buyer, this means the number on the contract that actually determines what you're paying for isn't tonnage — it's the KOR figure. If that figure is wrong, high, or unverified, you can pay full price for a lot that yields materially less kernel once it's processed.

The outturn certificate: your main lever before payment

The KOR figure written into a sale contract is only as good as what backs it. That backing document is an independent outturn certificate of analysis, run on a sample drawn from the specific lot being sold — not a generic average for the region or season.

Before payment, confirm three things about this certificate: that it was run on a sample from the actual lot you're buying (not a reference sample from an earlier shipment), that the lab or inspector is independent of the seller, and that the KOR number on the certificate matches the number written into your contract. A certificate that exists but doesn't match your contract figure is a red flag worth resolving before funds move, not after.

Fumigation and pest control paperwork

Raw cashew nuts are routinely fumigated — commonly with methyl bromide or an approved alternative — before or during shipment, to control storage pests over what can be a long sea voyage. A fumigation certificate is issued to record this treatment.

The practical check for a buyer is less about whether fumigation happened and more about sequencing: was it done before container loading, or is it scheduled for a transit point? Certificates issued after the fact, or for a different batch number than the one on your bill of lading, are the kind of mismatch worth catching before payment rather than at the port of discharge.

Phytosanitary certificates aren't one-size-fits-all

A phytosanitary certificate isn't a generic form. India's Plant Quarantine Order, for example, requires a destination-specific additional declaration on the certificate for cashew shipments, with the exact wording set by the buyer's import permit — not by a standard template the exporter already has on file.

This is a Ghana-side lesson worth carrying over even though you're a US buyer: if your import channel, broker, or any onward buyer has specific wording requirements for a phytosanitary declaration, you need to supply that wording to the exporter early. Exporters used to shipping to India or Vietnam will default to whatever declaration those markets require unless told otherwise — and a certificate issued with the wrong destination wording can hold up clearance regardless of how sound the cashews themselves are.

Why being a US buyer changes the picture

Because the US isn't a significant RCN buyer, you're operating without the market infrastructure that's built up around India and Vietnam: fewer local inspectors with US-import experience, contract templates that assume an Indian or Vietnamese destination, and exporters who may not have handled a US-bound raw cashew shipment before. None of that makes the trade unworkable — but it means the checks in this guide are things you should ask for explicitly and in writing, rather than assume are standard practice, because the seller's default paperwork process was not built with your destination in mind.

Worked example: a US buyer's first RCN contract

A US snack-food importer agrees to buy a container of raw cashew nuts from a Ghanaian exporter, with price set against a KOR figure written into the contract. Rather than accepting the seller's quoted KOR on trust, the importer asks for the underlying outturn certificate before wiring payment, and checks that the lot number on the certificate matches the lot number on the shipping documents — not just a similar-sounding batch from the same week.

Separately, because the importer's US customs broker has never handled a raw cashew shipment before, the importer asks the exporter directly what phytosanitary wording will appear on the certificate, rather than assuming it will match what an Indian buyer's import permit would require — since that destination-specific wording is set by the importing country's own requirement, not by exporter default. The fumigation certificate arrives referencing the correct container number, tying the treatment record to the actual cargo rather than a generic batch reference. With the outturn certificate, correctly worded phytosanitary certificate, and matching fumigation record all in hand, the importer releases payment.

Checklist at a glance

Before you commit

Raw cashew is a specialised trade even within Ghana's export sector, and the US side of it is thin compared to India and Vietnam. Build your checklist around the KOR figure, the outturn certificate, the fumigation record, and destination-specific phytosanitary wording — and put every one of those requests in writing to your exporter before payment moves.