The Cashew RFQ Template That Forces Comparable Quotes
Last updated: 2026-09-29 · 14 min read · By Tùng Trần, Founder & Sourcing Director
Key takeaways
- Nine commercial fields are missing from most Vietnam cashew supplier websites — the RFQ must require them
- Only 3 of 17 audited sites publish Incoterms, yet the choice moves landed cost by 5–15%
- Name a quality standard — AFI 2016 full, Middle East premium, or China 2 — instead of describing quality in adjectives
- T/T 30% deposit against 70% on bill of lading copy is the common structure; L/C at sight suits first transactions
- Quality disputes follow a fixed sequence: notify within the contract window, seal a sample, arrange joint inspection
Table of contents
- Why do cashew quotes arrive incomparable?
- The nine fields your RFQ must require
- The RFQ template
- How should I specify quality?
- FOB, CFR, CIF or DAP — which should I ask for?
- Which payment terms should I expect?
- The contract clauses that matter
- How do I handle a quality dispute?
- Is pre-shipment inspection worth it?
- Should I approve a sample before contracting?
- How do I read the replies?
Why do cashew quotes arrive incomparable? {#why-incomparable}
Because the request was underspecified. When an enquiry says only "please quote cashews", each supplier fills the gaps with their own defaults — different grade, different packing, different Incoterm — and the replies cannot be lined up. The fix is to remove the gaps rather than to chase clarifications afterwards.
In our September 2026 audit of 17 Vietnam cashew supplier websites, three published Incoterms, two published payment terms, and one published a lead time. Suppliers are not withholding these terms; the trade simply never developed the habit of publishing them. That means the burden of structuring the conversation falls on the buyer, and a well-built RFQ does most of the work in a single message.
There is a second benefit that buyers underrate. A structured request makes suppliers reply in a structured way, which means the comparison sheet almost builds itself instead of requiring a week of normalisation.
The nine fields your RFQ must require {#nine-fields}
Require quality parameters, packing format, container load, MOQ, lead time, payment terms, Incoterm, export documents, and certification scope. These are precisely the fields our audit found missing from most supplier websites, which makes them the fields a quote will omit unless you ask.
| Field | Why it decides the comparison |
|---|---|
| Quality parameters | Moisture, broken and defect ceilings — the actual product promise |
| Packing format | Changes cost per kg and shelf life; also changes container load |
| Container load | Determines freight per kg, the hidden half of landed cost |
| MOQ | Decides whether the supplier is viable at your volume at all |
| Lead time | Decides whether the supplier is viable for your launch date |
| Payment terms | Working capital cost, often larger than the price difference |
| Incoterm | Without it, no two quotes are comparable |
| Export documents | Determines whether your goods clear customs on arrival |
| Certification scope | Certificate must cover the producing facility, not the trading entity |
The last one is the trap most buyers miss. A supplier may hold BRCGS legitimately while the specific facility packing your order sits outside the certificate's scope. Ask which site is covered, not just which certificate exists.
The RFQ template {#the-template}
Send one message containing your requirement, the nine required fields, and a reply-by date. Keep it under 250 words. Suppliers answer structured requests faster than open-ended ones, because a structured request is easier to answer.
Subject: RFQ — [grade] cashew kernels, [volume], shipment [month]
We are a [importer / private-label brand / food manufacturer] in [country],
sourcing cashew kernels for [end use].
REQUIREMENT
- Grade: [e.g. W320, AFI notation]
- Quality standard: [AFI 2016 full / Middle East premium / China 2]
- Quantity: [e.g. 1 x 20' FCL, repeating quarterly]
- Shipment period: [month / window]
- Destination port: [port, country]
PLEASE QUOTE, INCLUDING ALL OF THE FOLLOWING
1. Quality parameters — moisture max, broken max, defect max
2. Packing format — bag or tin, net weight, units per carton
3. Container load — net MT per 20' and per 40'HQ, cartons per container
4. MOQ
5. Lead time from order confirmation to shipment
6. Payment terms
7. Incoterm — please state explicitly (FOB / CFR / CIF / DAP)
8. Export documents included with shipment
9. Certifications, and which facility they cover
Please also state the validity date of your quotation.
We are comparing offers and will respond by [date].Three details in that template do disproportionate work. Naming the quality standard stops suppliers from quoting to different tolerance sets. Asking for the Incoterm explicitly stops the most common source of false comparison. Asking for the validity date protects you from treating a three-week-old number as current in a market where crop and freight both move.
How should I specify quality? {#specify-quality}
Name a standard rather than describing quality in adjectives. Three tiers recur in Vietnam cashew contracts: AFI 2016 full specification, Middle East premium, and China 2. Each carries different tolerances, and quoting against the wrong one produces a price that looks competitive but describes a different product.
| Standard | Moisture | Defective kernels | Typical destination |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFI 2016 full | below 5% | below 4% | US, EU, Japan premium retail |
| Middle East premium | around 4.5% | AFI-based | Gulf markets, tin packing |
| China 2 | — | more lenient | China, further processing |
AFI 2016 full specification also requires foreign material below 0.1%, no live insects and no rancidity. Middle East buyers commonly tighten moisture because the transit and storage chain is longer and more humid, and because tin packing carries different expectations than vacuum bags.
Only one site in our audit of 17 published quality parameters as numbers, which tells you how rarely these figures surface unprompted. When you receive them, three matter most:
Moisture ceiling. Drives shelf life and rancidity risk. It is also the parameter most affected by packing choice, so read it together with the packing answer rather than separately.
Broken maximum. The share of the consignment that will not be whole on arrival. In transparent retail packaging this is a direct quality claim; in industrial use it may be irrelevant.
Defect maximum. Covers spotting, insect damage and immature kernels. Worth understanding that spotting often originates in the field before harvest rather than in processing, so a defect tolerance reflects a crop reality being managed, not simply a factory's care level.
One caution that prevents unnecessary disputes: blemished and broken classes carry their own tolerance sets by definition. A blemished whole grade permits total defects up to 14%, so a lot testing at 12% is compliant. Applying a white-grade tolerance to a blemished-grade contract manufactures a dispute out of a correctly supplied shipment.
FOB, CFR, CIF or DAP — which should I ask for? {#incoterms}
The Incoterm decides who pays for freight and insurance, and the choice moves total landed cost by roughly 5–15%. FOB puts freight and insurance on the buyer. CFR adds seller-paid freight. CIF adds insurance as well. DAP delivers to a named inland place with the seller handling everything except import duties.
| Incoterm | Seller pays | Buyer pays | When it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| FOB | Delivery onto vessel at origin | Freight, insurance, import | Buyer has freight contracts |
| CFR | Freight to destination port | Insurance, import | Buyer insures centrally |
| CIF | Freight and insurance to port | Import, inland | Buyer wants one figure to port |
| DAP | All costs to named place | Import duties only | Buyer wants a delivered price |
The practical guidance is simpler than the table suggests. If you move enough volume to hold your own freight rates, quote FOB and control the leg yourself. If you do not, CIF gives you a number you can budget against without becoming a freight buyer. DAP is worth requesting when your team has no import logistics capability at all and would rather pay for the service than build it.
What matters most is that every quote in your comparison uses the same term. Since only three of seventeen audited sites publish Incoterms at all, expect to specify it yourself and to receive at least one quote that quietly answers on a different basis. Convert everything to a single term before ranking, or the ranking is meaningless.
Which payment terms should I expect? {#payment-terms}
Telegraphic transfer with 30% deposit and 70% against a copy of the bill of lading is the common structure. Letter of credit at sight through a top-tier bank suits first transactions. Documents against payment sits between the two. Cash against documents is less common in cashew trade.
Two of seventeen audited sites published payment terms at all, so treat what follows as the shape of the conversation rather than a fixed market rule.
T/T 30/70 is the default in established relationships. The buyer pays a deposit on contract and the balance against a bill of lading copy, which means the seller ships before receiving full payment and the buyer pays before the goods arrive. It is fast, cheap to administer, and depends on trust that has usually been earned over prior shipments.
Letter of credit at sight costs more in bank fees and paperwork but removes counterparty risk for both sides. For a first container with an unknown supplier, that cost usually buys more than it costs. Insist on a top-tier issuing bank; an L/C is only as good as the institution behind it.
Documents against payment gives the seller control of the documents until payment is made, without the formality of an L/C. It is a reasonable proposal when an L/C feels heavy but a large deposit feels premature.
Cash against documents appears occasionally but is not the norm in this trade, and a supplier insisting on it for a first shipment is worth a question.
The working capital difference between these structures can exceed the price difference between two suppliers. A 30% deposit ninety days before arrival has a real cost that never appears in a per-kilogram comparison. Compare the whole package, not the per-kg number.
The contract clauses that matter {#contract-clauses}
A cashew contract should fix twelve things: product specification, quantity and tolerance, packing, price and currency, payment terms, shipment period, Incoterm, documents, inspection rights, quality claim procedure, force majeure, and dispute resolution with governing law.
Most cashew contracts are short, and the short ones cause the arguments. Working through this list before signature takes an hour and prevents the situations that take months.
Product specification — grade, class and quality standard by name, with the tolerance numbers written in rather than referenced vaguely.
Quantity and tolerance — the permitted variance on shipped weight. Natural product volumes rarely land exactly on a round figure, and a stated tolerance prevents a trivial shortfall becoming a breach.
Packing — inner unit weight, units per carton, carton net weight, and marking requirements. This clause is also what your container load calculation depends on.
Price and currency — including whether the price is per kilogram of net product and which Incoterm it assumes.
Payment terms — the structure agreed above, with the triggering document named precisely.
Shipment period — a window rather than a date, with a stated consequence if it is missed.
Incoterm — named, with the specific port or place, and the Incoterms edition referenced.
Documents — the exact list travelling with the shipment. Missing paperwork stops a container at the destination as effectively as a quality failure.
Inspection rights — whether the buyer may appoint an inspector, at whose cost, and at what stage.
Quality claim procedure — the notification window and the evidence required. Covered in detail below.
Force majeure — what qualifies, and what happens to a part-performed contract.
Dispute resolution and governing law — the forum, the seat of arbitration, and the law applied. Agreeing this while everyone is friendly is far easier than agreeing it during a dispute.
How do I handle a quality dispute? {#disputes}
Follow the contract sequence rather than improvising. Notify the seller within the contract window — commonly 14 days from arrival — retain a sample sealed by a third party, arrange joint inspection by an independent agency, then propose a price adjustment or replacement based on the inspection report. Escalate to arbitration only after negotiation fails.
The order of those steps matters more than their content, because each one preserves the option to take the next.
Notify inside the window. A late notification weakens a claim regardless of its merit. Send it as soon as you have evidence, even if the evidence is preliminary.
Seal a sample with a third party present. An unsealed sample taken by the buyer alone is easy to challenge and often decides an otherwise strong claim against you. This single step is what separates claims that settle from claims that stall.
Arrange joint inspection. An independent agency examining the consignment with both parties represented produces a report both parties find hard to dismiss. Common choices include SGS and Bureau Veritas internationally, with Vinacontrol and Cafecontrol widely used within Vietnam.
Propose a remedy, not a verdict. A price adjustment proportionate to the shortfall settles most disputes. Demanding wholesale rejection of a consignment that is 2% outside tolerance usually ends in a standoff neither side wins.
Most quality disputes trace back to a specification that was never precise enough to test against. The clearer your quality clause, the shorter this section becomes in practice.
Is pre-shipment inspection worth it? {#inspection}
For orders above roughly $50,000 or for a first shipment with a new supplier, generally yes. Independent inspection covering grade verification, moisture testing, packing check and loading supervision typically costs $500–$1,500 per container and prevents the large majority of common quality disputes.
The arithmetic is straightforward. On a container worth tens of thousands of dollars, an inspection fee in the hundreds is a small fraction of the value at risk, and it converts an argument about what was shipped into a documented fact recorded before the container sailed.
What a pre-shipment inspection actually covers:
Grade verification — that the kernels in the cartons match the grade on the contract, checked by count.
Moisture testing — the parameter most likely to drift and the one most consequential for shelf life.
Packing check — that carton net weight, units per carton and marking match the contract, which also validates your container load arithmetic.
Loading supervision — that the inspected goods are the goods that actually went into the container.
That last point is the one buyers most often skip and most often regret. Inspection without loading supervision confirms that compliant goods existed; it does not confirm that they were loaded.
For repeat shipments from a supplier with an established record, inspection frequency can reasonably drop. For a first container, the case for it is strong enough that we treat it as default rather than optional.
Should I approve a sample before contracting? {#samples}
Yes for a first order, and the sample only means something if it is handled as evidence. Request a sample drawn from production rather than a display sample, record what you received, and state in the contract that the shipment must conform to the approved sample as well as to the written specification.
A sample that arrives in an unmarked bag with no lot reference proves very little. Three practices turn a sample into something a contract can rest on:
Ask which lot it came from. A sample drawn from a real production lot tells you what the supplier makes. A sample assembled by hand tells you what the supplier can select, which is a different thing.
Keep a retained portion, sealed. Split the sample and keep half sealed and dated. If a later shipment is disputed, the retained sample is the reference point — and a claim supported by a retained approved sample is far stronger than one supported by memory.
Reference the sample in the contract. The clause is short: shipment to conform to specification and to approved sample reference X dated Y. Without it, the sample is a courtesy rather than a term.
The realistic limitation is worth stating plainly: a sample confirms what a supplier is capable of producing, not what will arrive in a container three months later. That is exactly why the sample sits alongside a written specification and pre-shipment inspection rather than replacing either. Buyers who rely on the sample alone are relying on the weakest of the three.
Sample logistics also tell you something. A supplier who dispatches a properly identified sample quickly is demonstrating the same administrative capability that will handle your shipping documents later.
How do I read the replies? {#read-replies}
Score the reply, not only the price. Count how many of the nine fields came back complete, note how long the reply took, and check whether the supplier answered the grade you asked for. These signals predict how the same supplier will handle your shipping documents under time pressure.
A practical scoring approach that takes ten minutes:
Completeness. Nine fields requested, count how many arrived. A supplier returning all nine has an export desk that knows its own terms. A supplier returning four will generate follow-up work at every stage of the shipment.
Turnaround. Two working days is a good sign. Two weeks on a simple RFQ tells you something about capacity or interest.
Precision on the Incoterm. A quote that states "CIF Rotterdam" is answering. A quote that states a number and leaves the term implicit is not, and should not enter the comparison until it does.
Consistency between packing and container load. These two answers are arithmetically linked. If the packing format and the stated tonnage per container do not reconcile, ask — it is usually a copy-paste error, and finding it early is cheaper than finding it at the port.
Whether they answered the grade you asked. A supplier who quotes a different grade without flagging the substitution is either not reading carefully or is steering you toward their available stock. Both are worth knowing before you commit a container.
At HotaNuts we run this loop for buyers as a Vietnam-based sourcing and export partner: issuing the RFQ, normalising the replies, coordinating third-party inspection, and flagging where two quotes only look like they disagree. The template above is the same one we send.
Glossary
CFR — Cost and Freight, an Incoterm where the seller pays freight to the destination port but not insurance.
DAP — Delivered At Place, an Incoterm where the seller bears all costs to a named place except import duties.
FOB — Free On Board, an Incoterm where the seller delivers goods onto the vessel at the origin port.
L/C at sight — Letter of credit paid by the bank on presentation of compliant shipping documents.
Pre-shipment inspection — Independent verification of grade, moisture and packing before a container is sealed.
RFQ — Request For Quotation, a structured enquiry specifying exactly what a supplier must quote.
T/T — Telegraphic Transfer, a bank-to-bank payment commonly split into deposit and balance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a cashew RFQ include?
A cashew RFQ should state grade, quality standard, quantity, shipment period and destination port, then require nine fields in reply: quality parameters, packing, container load, MOQ, lead time, payment terms, Incoterm, export documents and certification scope, plus a quotation validity date.
Why do I need to ask cashew suppliers for Incoterms?
Only three of seventeen audited Vietnam cashew websites publish Incoterms, so most quotes arrive without one. The choice between FOB, CFR, CIF and DAP moves total landed cost by roughly 5–15%, making quotes on different terms genuinely incomparable.
What payment terms are standard for Vietnam cashew imports?
Telegraphic transfer with 30% deposit and 70% against a bill of lading copy is the common structure. Letters of credit at sight through a top-tier bank are usual for first transactions, with documents against payment as a middle option.
How long do I have to raise a cashew quality claim?
Contracts commonly allow 14 days from arrival, though the exact window is whatever your contract states. Notify inside that window even with preliminary evidence, because a late notification weakens an otherwise well-founded claim.
How much does pre-shipment cashew inspection cost?
Independent inspection typically costs $500 to $1,500 per container, covering grade verification, moisture testing, packing check and loading supervision. For orders above roughly $50,000 or a first shipment with a new supplier, the fee is small against the value at risk.
Which quality standard should I name in my cashew contract?
Name AFI 2016 full specification for US, EU and Japanese premium retail; Middle East premium where tin packing and longer transit require tighter moisture; China 2 where the market prices to more lenient defect tolerances. Naming a tier beats describing quality in adjectives.
Does a supplier certificate always cover the factory packing my order?
No. A certificate may be held by a trading entity while the facility packing your consignment sits outside its scope. Always ask which specific site the certification covers rather than accepting the certificate name alone.
Take the next step
Once quotes are comparable, the next variable is packing — which changes both cost per kilogram and how much product fits in a container. Article 4 covers that arithmetic, including the container constant that almost no supplier explains.
We are happy to review an RFQ before you send it, or to look over a set of replies you are struggling to reconcile.
Last updated: 2026-09-29. Template and terms reflect common practice in Vietnam cashew export trade.