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

Peace Corps Ghana Version 1, March 2008
luckily, the company had the vision to see that the right thing to do was take the loss
and move on.
The bad news is that the company will mostly likely not use this group again. While
they are in a village, they are so close to a large town they have to go to markets to
buy nuts, which mean they pay more, and therefore the shea butter costs more. If they
were more remote, they could collect the nuts themselves, cutting out the middleman
(or middlewoman) so to speak.
The good news is the group is not through. We are on hold though, and we have
learned quite a bit in our new experience. There is plenty of demand for shea butter.
My next step is to work with my counterpart on contacting other organizations who
would like to purchase shea butter where production cost is not as much of an issue.
This should not be too difficult.
One more lesson learned is costing the production of the butter to insure the women
receive a fair price. This is not easy. I worked with my women to figure out every
cost in detail. Even when I did this, I later learned there were other costs (hidden
costs). Hidden costs can be a women feeding someone or paying them to assist them.
Or, variable costs; for example, the price of nuts is hard to determine – are they
buying a rounded bowl or flat bowl? Our buyer wanted to price things by bag of shea
nuts, but the women buy in bowls – another potential issue. In addition, in leaner
seasons where there may be less rain, the nuts may yield less butter and you may not
know this until you produce the butter. All these factors need to be taken in to
consideration.
I’m wrapping up my service so I haven’t had time to resolve all these issues. One
thought would be for a firm they work with to purchase the nuts up front and simply
pay the women for their labor and cost of production.
There is big potential for village women to get more involved in the shea butter export
industry. Especially due to the rise of large and small businesses alike wanting to
purchase anything from low quality shea butter to high quality certified organic or
certified fair trade shea butter for use in their products. Don’t underestimate the
demand from small companies willing to pay slightly higher prices for more niche
markets. Opportunities selling shea butter, both in country and to exporters, is
growing rapidly. It’s up to the new wave of PCVs to continue to help improve and
support the women to insure they are truly getting fair prices while giving them the
satisfaction and pride of being a part of a team; helping them improve the lives of
their families; and passing on the shea butter production trade to future generations.
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