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

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Peace Corps Ghana Version 1, March 2008 6. Stories from the Field Shea Butter Extractor’s Women’s Group: Lessons Learned One of my counterparts and I propositioned a private company (we’ll call it ABC Company) about providing them with high quality shea butter for export to U.S. and European markets. The owners of the company were out of the country and the company was in a crunch to fulfill an order. The field assistant agreed to meet with us about the possibilities of working together. We let the representative know that we had 30 women ready to make shea butter under their strict quality control guidelines and within the timeframe needed. The company agreed to test the women’s ability and quality of butter with a 2,000 kilogram order (that’s 2 tons or 4,000lbs) at a preset price. The women would get half of the money up front and then the rest upon delivery. The company would provide packaging and pick up the butter from the village. My counterpart and I figured the costs of production and profit desired and decided the price the company was willing to pay was worth it. Everyone seemed happy. The women were especially excited to be a part of a group (this is an understatement – they were thrilled!). The women were now the Kalpohin Shea Butter Extractors Association! More importantly, to them, they could tell other women of their village of 5,000 that they belonged to something. They were so proud. Note to self – It was time to set expectations to the group that this is a new venture and we must proceed carefully and with much caution. Who could know if this was something that would continue? Constant communication would prove to be key. As a requirement from the company, my counterpart set up a bank account for the newly formed women’s group. The bank in turn required GH¢200 to get the account up and we used the women’s own money. The account was necessary for transparency purposes for the company and made good sense to the group so they could easily receive and keep track of monies received and earned. My counterpart would act as the accountant, manager, and liaison between the group and any outside buyers for the women since none of the women spoke English. Once the money was received from ABC Company, the women went right to work. This was where problems started. Not until after the money was received and the women were well in to production was the group informed that they needed to provide their own scale to weigh the butter for packaging. My counterpart tried for two weeks to find a scale and when he did, the women were nearly done making the butter. The women even used their own money to buy more nuts to cover the total amount needed to complete the order. I was unaware they spent their own money to complete the order, but was impressed at their eagerness to finish the product in the timeframe requested by the buyer. Once the scale was in place my counterpart and the women began weighing and packaging the butter. Everything seemed on track until the ABC Company sent one of their field assistants out to check the status of the order. When they weighed the order, it was below the required amount by 25%! We concluded that the scale that the villagers used was faulty. The second blow was that the women spent all the money Page 16 of 28
Peace Corps Ghana Version 1, March 2008 they were given and half of their own money (the money they assumed the company would reimburse them), but they only produced 1,500kgs of butter. If ABC Company paid them for only 1,500kgs the women would be at a loss! Oi! This was a crisis and the owners of the business were still out of country. What would we do!? We were in limbo for some weeks. I met with my counterpart to go over all our numbers and costs. We spent hours and hours double checking figures. Everything seemed fine with our calculations. I met with the women multiple times to talk with them about the situation. I learned that they had informed others of the village and that the whole village was on stand-by to see how the ABC Company, made up of non-Ghanaians, would handle the situation. I’m not sure what the implications were, but I know that they were not happy and it seemed like bad things could happen if things weren’t resolved amicably. After hours of pouring over the cost data I acquired from the company and our own calculations, it appeared it was really no one’s fault except for a weighing scale’s. That coupled with low yielding shea nuts (this particular season was now proving to yield low butter from nuts due to lack of rains). The good news was the women produced excellent butter in a timely manner. It was packaged neatly and ready for delivery even before the company was ready to receive it. The main lesson learned for me as a facilitator: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained (even if it’s just knowledge). When you go into a new venture, you take chances and even if you are very careful to reduce your risks, there are still risks. This entire issue may have been avoided had the company doubled checked the village's scale measurements upon the first batch of butter made, but would that have been a reasonable expectation? Perhaps yes, for a newly formed group such as ours, however, the company was spreading itself thin trying to cover this particular order. But then again the scale issue was uncommon; why should the company think that a scale would be off by 25% when it hadn’t happened before? Even if an issue was detected, this may have meant the order would have been cancelled because the problem then would lie with the nuts that the women purchased which were yielding low butter. Then the women would have been left with a bunch of nuts and a cancelled order. Communication with my counterpart and the women was important during this entire process. This is where I feel things went well. I stayed in constant contact with them through the process and met with them frequently to insure them that we were all in this together and my counterpart and I were working hard to represent them to this outside foreign company. I did not want them to think I was conspiring with anyone to take advantage of them. Also, my relationship with the company helped smooth things over, as well. I knew one of the owners and one of the field assistants. We discussed things thoroughly and we all came to an agreement to chalk this up to no one’s fault, but it would mean a loss for the company. They graciously agreed to reconcile the initial amount agreed to be paid to the women without making the women produce more butter, which would mean a loss to them. I knew this would provide a hit to the company, but Page 17 of 28
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