Most disputes over a cashew shipment are not disputes about grading. They are disputes about what happened between the packing line and the buyer's warehouse. Shipping cashew kernels from West Africa is a logistics discipline in its own right, and it is worth setting out plainly what governs it.

Start with the pack. Kernels leave Bissau either vacuum-packed in tins under nitrogen or in food-grade cartons with liners, palletised and strapped. The choice is not cosmetic. Vacuum packing holds moisture and oxidation risk down over a long transit and suits buyers with slow depletion; carton packing is faster to handle and generally preferred by manufacturers who will open the lot within weeks of arrival.

Then the container. A 20-foot container is the practical unit for kernel, typically loading around 17 to 18 tonnes depending on pack format. Loading is done under cover, with desiccant where humidity warrants it, and the container inspected for taint and prior cargo residue before a single pallet goes in. Cashew picks up odour readily, which is why the previous contents of a box matter as much as its structural condition.

Transit from the Port of Bissau runs through West African feeder services to a European hub, most often in Iberia, northern Europe or the Mediterranean, before onward carriage. Realistic door-to-door planning for a European buyer sits in the region of four to six weeks from booking; Gulf destinations are broadly comparable, routed through a Middle East transhipment hub. Any supplier quoting materially faster than that is describing a best case, not a plan.

The document set travels with the goods and should be complete on arrival: commercial invoice and packing list, bill of lading, certificate of origin, phytosanitary certificate, and a certificate of analysis covering moisture, defective count and the agreed microbiological parameters, referenced to the lot codes in the container. Where duty-free access under Everything But Arms is being claimed, the origin documentation has to support it without a follow-up request.

None of this is exotic. It is simply the part of the transaction that is easiest to underestimate and most expensive to get wrong, which is why we would rather agree it in writing before the first container is booked than negotiate it after one has landed.