Shea Butter A Guide to Production and Marketing - AGOA Export ...

Peace Corps Ghana Version 1, March 2008
For example, The butter buyer wants to buy butter at the lowest price. Meanwhile the
butter seller wants to sell at the highest price. Still there are many benefits to a Value
Chain as compared to a traditional business relationship. First, Value Chains provide
for better information sharing among all members. A butter buyer will offer quality
feedback or make packaging requests of the butter seller. The butter seller can ask the
buyer for help with transportation. Also, the Value Chain as a whole is competing
with other chains, so the focus will shift from profit to quality. If the end result is poor
quality butter, consumers won’t be interested and the whole chain will suffer.
As you go up each step of the chain, the level of education, time, and other resources
increases. When deciding where on the Value Chain you want to be, consider the
level of education and resources available to the group. It may not be possible for
your group to export directly to a US company, but maybe you can connect them to a
buyer of shea butter, educate producers on quality standards, provide local producers
with market information, link producers to buyers, or help source funding for a
grinding mill or other equipment to increase production.
In rural villages, price is definitely the most talked about problem. The most
important thing is to account for all costs in the production of the butter and cross
check for profit or loss. Butter buyers complain more about consistency and quality.
At the end of the chain there is a huge factory processing chocolate, and they want all
ingredients to be standardized. And the occasional stick or dead bug may seem like no
big deal to the market women, but L’Oreal will freak out.
5: Working at the Producer Level
Most likely, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, you will be working with Producer Groups.
This section addresses some of the issues to consider when working at this end of the
Value Chain.
Group Dynamics
Most communities have women's groups that form and come together for a
variety of reasons, but most likely for economic support. When considering shea
butter processing as an economic venture, forming establishing a well structured
women's group is imperative. As with any group that aims to be functional and
effective in its capacities, certain roles and responsibilities must first be designated to
rightful people in that group. Having proper knowledge of the personalities and
characters of the group is a great asset in learning who would best assume a particular
leadership role.
Women already have deep relationships with the other women in their communities
and know who the natural leaders of the group are. Sometimes, however, members are
elected to higher positions of the group based on social standing in the community
(for example being the wife of a big man in the community) and not necessarily the
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