The issue of consistent quality in shea butter production was a hot topic at the 2011 Global Shea conference in Accra. For many years large multi-national companies have preferred to purchase shea nuts instead of shea butter from the African producers.
The buyers of nuts claim that the quality of butter produced in Africa is inconsistent and does not meet the quality standards needed to produce cosmetic or food products. As a result, hundreds and thousands of tons of shea nuts are shipped from Africa to Europe and Asia where they are processed and refined for the use in other products.
The sale of shea nuts produces very little economic benefit to the women when compared to the sale of shea butter. Women who are engaged soley in business of selling shea nuts continue in a cycle of poverty. They sell their shea nuts to middle men for a pittance, the middlemen then resell the nuts international buyers.
In order to improve the quality and consistency of shea butter in Africa, companies must be willing to invest in training the shea producers at the grass roots level.
A representative from Benin (I believe) gave a wonderful analogy about the gap in quality perspectives between local producers and the international buyers. He said that in some communities a sign that you are getting authentic, high quality honey is based on the presence of a dead bee in the honey. Honey producers strive to ensure there is a dead be or two in the honey to convince buyers of the authenticity of their product.
Now if this honey producer follows this train of thought and produces what he considers to be the best honey for an international buyer, he will be sure to lose the business. Dead bees in honey do not have the same seal of authenticity in the international market. Dead bees mean that the quality of the product is inferior.
As Africans who live in the West, we understand this problem all too well. We realize that in order to help the local women who labor to produce shea butter find a consistent market for their product, they need to be trained and sensitized to what the market wants.
This shea season Shea Radiance we will be spending several weeks training and working closely with cooperatives in Niger state. With training support from Thompson Ogunasanmi and the GIZ team and the provision of locally manufactured technology, we will be teaching women how to add value to their labor by producing the best quality shea butter.
