Making Shea Butter Part One

 I went back to Taha to attend the Farmer Group meeting a few days ago. On that occasion they also had the woman group attending. Some of the women are members of both groups.

The womens group is just newly formed and they process shea butter. Shea butter in Ghanian culture is used for cooking, as well as for healing skin rashes. They face some constraints and they hope that by pulling their resources together they can better their situation. As far as I can tell they have two major constraints; they have very limited money-if any-and they have to rely on a mill for part of the processing that is located miles away. They think that if they had their own mill they could increase their output / revenues.

The first part of the process is labour intensive; it consists of grossly crushing the nuts. The crushed nuts are then fried and they are ready to be transport to the mill. The women transport the nuts on their head all the way to the mill and back. From there is the long process of separating the solid from the oil and clarifying the butter. The butter is sold to the market in Tamale, 20 kilometers away.

Meeting with the Farmer and Women Group

 So Karie and I spent some time with them and with a stick I drew the whole process on the ground and ask many questions. I have a pretty good understanding of what it takes to make the butter however the quantitative information is very unclear. It’s difficult to assess how much butter is produced with a certain amount of nuts. They sell the butter in bowls that are piled high over the rim. The quantity of nuts they use will depend on how much they can afford or what is available and sometimes a batch is combines with the left over from another to complete a bowl.

Abdulai doing the translation

They show us a small bowl, left over from the last batch, and Karie and I were very impressed. I have to say that Karie in her previous life did own a bath product manufacture and she used to buy shea butter and would pay $60 a pound. Looking at the women’s group butter she was immediately impressed at the quality and the purity of the product. I evaluate, from my questioning, they are selling what amount to about 10 pounds for 10 Cedis ($7 Canadian Dollars).

But I don’t know for sure.

The women's group embracing the photography

So I decided on the spot to invest in them.  I lend them the money to buy a 50 kilos bag of nuts and the price of the processing; this amounts to 100 Cedis ($70 Canadian Dollars). I expect a small mason jar of butter as my interest payment. I explained to them that they need to measure the time it takes them for each steps and the exact amount of shea butter they will produce with that one bag. Once I have those measures I can evaluate how profitable making butter is. From there I can look at options with them and evaluate if buying a mill is a good option for them...

Those are beautiful strong women who work hard and live very humbly. They are not very different than we are. They are concerned about shelter, food and the future of their children.  They are concerned about making their life better for themselves and their family. The difference is that where they were born they don’t have the same kind of opportunities as we have. 

The bowl on the left is grounded Shea nuts, the second if the extracted oil and the small one is the butter

Here I have to take my learned skills, project management, accounting, Business Planning and reduce it to the simplest of expression.  All the same principles apply but it has to be understood with few words and perhaps a few drawing in the dirt.

Karie and I are very excited about this and we are already thinking of taking as many jar as legally possible in our luggage.