A Cashew Package Two Centuries in the Making In the nineteenth century, soldiers from the Ashanti Kingdom of present-day Ghana fought alongside Dutch forces in Java, Borneo, and Sumatra. When they eventually returned home, they brought back more than memories of distant lands. They carried with them a distinctly Indonesian blend of art and technology: batik. The fabric, which they referred to as wax cloth, gradually spread across Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, and much of West Africa. Textile mills emerged, local interpretations evolved, and over time the aesthetic became deeply embedded in the region's visual culture. People loved it.

Two centuries later, along a very different timeline, a Canadian company and its West African partners reached an agreement to help manage one of Côte d'Ivoire's most abundant natural resources: cashews. The nuts are harvested, collected, and prepared for export, then shipped to Vietnam or India for processing, a route followed by the vast majority of Africa's raw cashew supply. Once processing is complete, the cashews begin yet another journey across the ocean, this time westward, destined for store shelves in Canada and the United States.

That unusual chain of connections became the starting point for this packaging concept. African Wax was chosen as the visual language, inspired by a textile tradition whose roots can be traced, at least in part, to the Indonesian archipelago. In a way, this is a package of salted cashews that took two centuries to make. As a final note, the farmer illustration used in the concept was sourced from Freepik.