She was so impressed with the results she invited all her friends who share her love and passion for horses and the outdoors to come and try our shea butter products.

In our quest to expand the global market for shea, it is important to show skincare manufacturers the potential of shea butter and how it can be of benefit to the end user. Many of us believe that shea butter is a viable replacement for petroleum based emollients that are currently used by some cosmetic manufacturers.

The bioactive substances in shea butter reside in the unsaponifiable fraction – the oil-soluble constituents that would not react with alkali to form soap – which is a by-product of the CBE/CBI production process. They include anti-oxidants such as tocopherols (vitamin E) and catechins (also found in green tea).

Alander and Andersson (2002) and Alander (2004) identified other specific compounds such as triterpene alcohols, known to reduce inflammation; cinnamic acid esters, which have limited capacity to absorb ultraviolet (UV) radiation; and lupeol, which prevents the effects of skin aging by inhibiting enzymes that degrade skin proteins. Shea butter also protects skin by stimulating production of structural proteins by specialized skin cells.

Excerpt taken from Reinforcing sound management through trade: shea tree products in Africa
E.T. Masters, J.A. Yidana and P.N. Lovett

Shea butter is used as an edible in ingredient in Europe and Asia for ice cream, chocolates, pastries and other confections. Unfortunately the presence and use of shea butter in these products is not always obvious to the end user. Having the Africa Shea logo on finished products conaining shea butter will bring consumer awareness to the product and establish this uniquely African oil as a staple in the food and cosmetic industry.

Sheanuts, a vital ingredient

European chocolates with shea butter

Shea Butter Product by L'occitaine

Approximately 90% of the shea nuts produced are shipped to Asia, Europe and the US for use in the food industry.
One of the goals of branding African Shea is to use the Africa Shea logo wherever Shea is used. This means that a chocolate bar that has Shea Butter used as a Cocoa Butter Equivalent (CBE) will bear that logo. The goal is to bring more visibility to the use and sources of Shea butter anywhere it is used.

The cooperatives bring processed shea butter to the Union center where further filtering and packaging is done to produce a premium grade of shea butter for the local market.

They have future goals of targeting the international market, but right now they are meeting the local demand within Mali and the neighboring countries for quality shea and soap bars to be used for personal care.

Madam Fatima displays finished soap bar

Soap Bars Ready for Sale

Shea Butter Packaged in 1kg tubs for local use

The shea tree is a West African plant frequently found in villages and surrounding areas. The tree produces shea nuts towards the beginning of the rainy season. If the rainy season is generous, the trees produce many nuts. The tree’s wood burns very easily, and rural populations cut great numbers of shea trees to make charcoal.

Thanks to efforts by the agents of the Forest and Waters Departments and of village associations fighting against desertification, shea trees continue to exist.

Rural women – who are the people most affected by poverty – lead the efforts to process shea nuts into shea butter. When women sell shea butter in the marketplace, the income allows them to support their families. As detailed in the script, these women would greatly benefit if they had machinery such as a mill because it would help them transform the shea nut into a softer paste. Machinery would also help make the processing quicker and less tiring than processing by hand.

The Song-Taaba Yalgré organisation represents the interests of Burkina Faso’s shea butter producers, most of whom are rural women, by helping them to improve production and boost sales. Song-Taaba Yalgré itself is based in Ouagadougou, but most of its 2,000 members live in remote areas so communication is difficult, time-consuming and costly. The organisation therefore developed an ICT project to address this problem, with promising results.

SAGNARIGU, Jun 11, 2008 (IPS) – “Wherever I went, they laughed at me and called me ‘Habiba the empty mouth.’ I was always embarrassed,” says 45-year-old Habiba Alhassan. “I could not afford to smile; I could not open my mouth in public, when I took photographs I had to close my mouth so that I wouldn’t look ugly.”

With all her front teeth missing, Alhassan was an object of mockery in her village, Sagnarigu, in the northern region of Ghana. Too poor to afford artificial teeth, she seemed destined to live with the embarrassment for life. “My petty trade in cocoa drinks was hardly enough to feed me let alone replace my lost teeth,” she said.

But all that changed early last year, when she joined a rural women’s cooperative producing soap from shea butter. In less than six months, she was able to save more than $300 from her earnings to replace the missing teeth. “Nobody believed me when I said I was determined to replace the missing teeth, now I have done it,” Habiba said proudly.

The cooperative, known as the Ideal Woman Shea Butter Producers and Pickers Association is the product of a poverty eradication initiative for rural women in Northern Ghana. The initiative is backed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Japanese government under the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). TICAD is a global framework for collaboration between Asia and Africa to promote economic development in Africa.