The time is finally here, our new flavours launched last week! How exciting, we’re so pleased to finally be able to share them with you!

We wanted to give a more in depth look into the thought process behind these new additions to the Cajuu product range, what went into the decision making, how we tested them and more importantly, how we came up with their names!

The process began in mid 2021, just after I (Leah- Marketing Manager) had joined the Cajuu ranks. Habil and I were discussing the brand evolution, and the next steps we wanted to take to grow the company. Upon discussing new flavours, it was an immediate ‘well which flavours should we choose?’, ‘What should we name them?’, ‘What colour should the packaging be?’

All of these thoughts bundled around our minds whilst we tried to figure out the steps way too far ahead of ourselves. What we had to ask ourselves first was when creating new flavours, what did we want them to mean to us and Cajuu? 

There’s an unofficial roadmap of the flavours to produce, those being some sort of plain salted one, something cheesy, and then something spicy to cover all your bases. This has been done across multiple snack brands, for instance, Walkers with Ready Salted (plain), Cheese and Onion (Cheesy), and Salt and Vinegar (which many would say are spicy due to the acidic vinegar). Another one would be Doritos, with Cool Original (plain), Tangy Cheese (Cheesy) and Chilli Heatwave (Spicy). The map even extends to regular food items, such as pizza- a Magherita  would be plain, a 4 Cheese would clearly be cheesy, and then Pepperoni could be classed as spicy etc 

However when it came to applying this road map to our cashew nuts, we had to figure out what these new flavours could be, and if our existing customers as well as new customers would like them. We wanted them to blend well with our current flavours, those being Lake Natron Salt and Pepper, Mango Moa, and Vanilla and Salted Caramel.

What were we to do?

To Instagram!

If you follow us on Instagram or are subscribed to our email newsletters you might have seen at the beginning of the year, we opened up submissions for new flavour ideas, because we wanted to see what those who knew and loved our snacks wanted to see next from us. Of course, we did have some ideas in mind already, but we wanted to see what was most preferred by the very people actually eating our nuts!

We had tons of suggestions, some simple like ‘Lemon’ or ‘Cheese’, and then some as wacky as ‘Beans on Toast’ and even ‘Beef Wellington’! We also had a lot of repeat suggestions, a clear nod towards which flavours were most in demand and sought after by you all. Wanting very much to still be able to incorporate our African direction in these new flavours, we chose 10 flavours, flavours we liked as well as the ones that were most requested, and held polls for you to vote on, again through Instagram and Email (check out our socials and sign up to our emails to make sure you don’t miss your chance next time!). These polls revealed a clear 5 favourites by you! Hurrah!

However we were only launching 3- so here was how we had to make that choice.

Without revealing what the unchosen other 2 flavours were, we had to look at these 5 new proposed flavours and act as if they were part of the range and how we felt about them. How easy were they to make? Would they pair well with the natural creaminess and flavour of the cashew? Can we make this easily vegan? How much would it cost? How well would this sell? These were all the things we had to consider.

The two we didn’t choose we felt didn’t fit in with our range just yet, and whilst they could definitely be future additions, with our existing flavours and where we were as a brand, they weren’t the right choices for us just yet.

So now with our 3 new flavours chosen, we had to work on creating them physically. 

This took a lot of testing, mixing different ingredients, different ratios of flavours to see what worked best, until eventually we arrived at three mixes we felt represented the chosen flavours best. 

Meet our 3 new flavours:

Tanzanian Salt Roasted: Meet the simpler flavour of our 3 new releases. This flavour takes the natural creaminess of the cashew and elevates it post roasting, with a little saltiness to really emphasise the tastiness of the nut. We chose the name to Tanzanian Salt Roasted due to wanting this to be our standard flavour of the range, one new customers could try first when exploring our products.

Safari Sweet Chilli: Mix the sweet with the heat in this delicious new Cajuu flavour, this one is definitely one you want to have your taste buds prepared for! We chose the name Safari to harp back to provenance (Tanzania being known for its amazing safari’s!).

Zanzibar Chilli Zest: A little bit of citrus, a little bit of spice, this is a flavour collab our taste buds are bound to enjoy! This flavour takes the creaminess of the cashew and takes it to a whole new level. We chose Zanzibar as the place to theme the cashew because spices are often found on this tiny island.

We hope you'll enjoy our new flavours and be sure to let us know which one is your favourite!