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inform MAY 2005 16 (5) 269–000
GLA ● Sensory analysis ● Detergent enzymes
Shea
butter
Shea
butter
www.aocs.org
www.aocs.org
MAY 2005 VOLUME 16 (5) 269–000
MAY 2005 VOLUME 16 (5) 269–000
inform • May 2005 • Volume 16 (5) SECTION NAME 273
Traditionally used as a source
of vegetable fat for cook-
ing or as a moisturizer to stave off
the drying effect of the West African
winds, shea butter is an ancient
African commodity that still plays
an important role in village life
even while gaining global popu-
larity.
The shea tree (Vitellaria para-
doxa, formerly known as
Butyrospermum paradoxum) is
the source of shea butter. It is one
of the major components of the
agroforestry parklands in the dry
zone of sub-Saharan Africa and is
the main indigenous oil-produc-
ing plant of this region. Indigenous
to only Africa, its natural range is
the semi-arid zone ranging from
Gambia to Uganda. Two subspecies
are taxonomically defined (para-
doxa and nilotica) though genetic
studies that my colleagues and I
made suggest the need to reap-
praise this distinction. This vari-
ability, however, holds much
potential.
Typically described as ‘wild’
and ‘seldom planted,’ the existence
of almost plantation-like parklands
demonstrates that for centuries
naturally regenerating trees have been delib-
erately maintained, managed and even
domesticated. Archaeological evidence and
traveller descriptions during the last mil-
lennium reveal that this management sys-
tem, and shea butter trade, was well
established before Islam arrived in West
Africa. Trade in this commodity may well
be confirmed as even older, if ancient Egyptian
artifacts made of shea wood and hiero-
glyphics showing trade in vegetable oil with
the “Land of Punt” (potentially Northern
Uganda), are proven authentic.
Visits to village markets across the
Sahel-savannah zone and beyond reveal that
little has changed and large quantities of
shea butter are still sold. It was traditionally
used as a source of vegetable fat in cooking
(for frying or as a sauce additive), or as
pomade for rubbing into the skin or hair to
stave off the drying effect of the winds. Other
uses include soap making, medicine, water-
proofing for walls and lamp fuel.
With an estimated 500 million pro-
ductive trees, an annual production of dry
kernel across the whole range of this species
may exceed 2.5 million metric tons (MMT).
In high population areas, such as southern
Niger and northern Nigeria, the majority of
nuts are collected for locally consumed shea
butter, though traditional utilization is likely
to be only 10-20% of the total with
much of the crop totally inaccessi-
ble or left uncollected.
During the last century Western
demand for shea kernel has been
growing. Experienced traders esti-
mate the current total at 150,000
metric tons (MT) of dry shea ker-
nel exported from Africa annually.
The African demand is obvi-
ous, given the limited choice of oil
or fat sources in the semi-arid zones
of the continent. But what is it that
has made shea butter so sought after
internationally, despite globally
available ‘vegetable oil’ alterna-
tives and difficulties in trading with
the African hinterland?
The answer lies in the fact that
vegetable oil, rich in olein, is glob-
ally abundant, but commercial
sources of vegetable fat, or ‘stearin’
as it is known in the trade, are less common.
Stearin is used in the confectionery indus-
try for chocolates, cakes, etc., and for mar-
garines. The most desired and well-known
source of stearin is cocoa butter.
Sources allowable as substitutes for
the production of cocoa butter improvers
(CBI) in the European Union (EU) are shea,
palm, illipe, kokum, sal and mango.
Permissible use is now standardized at 5%
maximum. In the United States, no ‘non-
cocoa butter’ additions are allowed in prod-
ucts labeled as chocolate, though there is
still a growing demand for shea butter.
Regrettably, this substitutable nature
of stearin for CBI is the greatest threat to
Shea butter industry
expanding in West Africa
Peter N. Lovett
Young shea trees in
northern Uganda.
Head-panning the fresh
sheanut harvest.
PETER LOVETT
PETER LOVETT
the fragile African shea industry. Despite
being the preferred stearin source for CBI
production, the quality, quantity and price
of the shea crop are criticized as being erratic.
Other constraints include the fear of polit-
ical instabilities in producing countries
(although the best sources of stearin-rich
kernel—Ghana, Burkina, Togo, Benin and
Mali—have recently been more stable), and
the fact that shea kernels are high in gums,
resulting in the need for complex and expen-
sive solvent-based fractionation methods.
Even with on-farm management, shea trees
are at best only semi-domesticated and have
many undesirable traits: trees take 20 years
to mature, the seeds have short viability, the
species is out-crossing and heterozygous
populations produce a highly variable crop
in terms of chemical profiles.
Given these constraints, it is under-
standable why buyers of stearin may be
looking for more stable stearin sources. It
has even been heard that the African shea
industry must “buck-up” within five years,
or risk being neglected as a source of this
sought-after ingredient.
New markets
New markets for shea butter
exist in the personal care indus-
try. The main reason for this
growing interest has been the
recognition by the cosmetics
industry (and its consumers)
of shea butter’s therapeutic
benefits—ultra-violet light
protection, anti-inflamma-
tory, moisturizing, regener-
ative, anti-eczema and
anti-wrinkle properties—due
to the presence of a signifi-
cant fraction of unsaponifi-
ables (3–12%) that includes
many bioactive chemicals,
e.g. triterpene alcohols, phe-
nols, sterols and the polyiso-
prenic hydrocarbon karitene.
The latest chapter in the
demand for shea butter is the
recent recognition by the mar-
ket in the United States of
these beneficial properties.
To date it is estimated that the
amount used in the Western
personal care market is about
10% of the total African
export, i.e. 5,000 MT of shea
butter (assuming an extraction rate of 33%
by weight) with demand in the United States
considered to be growing at 25% per annum.
Most recently, dietary-aid products have
been developed from shea butter fractions
for both humans and animals, and U.S. patents
have been taken out for products that lower
cholesterol, reduce arthritis symptoms and
have anti-diarrheal properties.
Given this demand for shea butter on
local, regional and international markets, the
question arises: How to give the required
quality in sufficient quantities while simul-
taneously increasing benefits reaching the
producers, the rural women of the African
savannah.
The trade in shea kernel is poorly organ-
ized and one that results in the women being
price-takers and delivering an inconsistent
product quality. Traders therefore enjoy
almost total control of a market separated
from production in both time and space, i.e.
shea is harvested in rural farms in June, but
dry kernel purchase is in urban centers in
November.
In order to create a “win-win” devel-
opment scenario, one must consider three
important constraints. First, the shea crop is
traditionally processed and utilized accord-
ing to strong local preferences for methods
and flavors, i.e. any impetus for change needs
to be strong. Second, the competitive world
market for stearin has few options to increase
prices, i.e. buyers seek better quality shea
but at the same cost. Third, the personal care
industry is still only a niche market (although
it offers the highest opportunities for value
addition), i.e. returns to the producers will
be limited only to a successful minority of
producers.
When taken together, the three markets
for shea can justify a sustainable tradition of
shea parkland management, but if profitability
starts to deteriorate, farmers soon turn to
alternative and exotic tree crops on their land,
such as cashew and mango.
Research in Ghana and Uganda, sup-
ported by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), has
274 COVER FEATURE inform • May 2005 • Volume 16 (5)
information
With primary support from the Common Fund for Commodities, the Projet d’Appui
Technique à la Filière Karité (ProKarité) is currently being implemented by the World
Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—a pilot plat-
form from which to engage participation and technical collaboration across the African
shea zone, including 16 countries from Senegal to Uganda. Building on simple methods
of product quality control at the producer level and enhanced ‘trace-ability’ along the
supply chain, the project is developing standard operating procedures for certified pro-
duction of optimal-quality shea products, to increase profitability for the primary pro-
ducers and rural processors, and to benefit the shea sector as a whole.
Through the Vitellaria Database, ProKarité has assembled existing data on charac-
terization of shea provenances, based on the chemical characteristics or ‘signatures’ of
shea products by geographic origin, which may add value for specific end-use applica-
tions. More information is at netlink: www.prokarite.org.
Traditional hand kneading
to extract shea butter.
PETER LOVETT
revealed some interesting results
in regard to producing high-qual-
ity shea kernel and the means
to improve resource manage-
ment. Put simply, research shows
that degradation is minimized
when freshly harvested kernels
are boiled using iron-free water
and then dried more efficiently
than current sun-drying in the
rainy season allows. With low
free fatty acid levels (< 0.5% is
possible), extraction and refin-
ing is more efficient and the costs
to pay for drying equipment can
be justified. Although higher
prices would not be paid for the
crop, the provision of equipment
that halves the drying time,
increases extraction rates and
can guarantee sales has already
been seen by some rural women
as sufficient justification to
start changing their traditional
ways.
In Uganda and Ghana, after
only a few years of USAID proj-
ect work, these types of incentives encour-
aged increased protection of shea trees and
significantly more young trees were main-
tained in the farmed parklands where the
projects were operational.
Furthermore, introducing quality-improv-
ing drying technology helps link the market
closer to production, offering opportuni-
ties for improved traceability. This will be
critical for African crops entering EU mar-
kets, since all food products put on the mar-
ket must be traceable under European food
and safety regulations that took effect in
January. Traceability is also a prerequisite
for organic certification, fair-trade and qual-
ity assurance. Premiums available with these
systems can then offer possibilities for increased
returns to the producer.
During the last 20 years, studies have
been conducted to identify genetic varia-
tion, methods of propagation and varieties
with superior characteristics (fat content and
profile, unsaponifiable content, growth rate).
It has been possible to demonstrate wide
variability in Vitellaria paradoxa, for vir-
tually all characteristics studied. It has also
been possible to develop a range of suc-
cessful vegetative propagation methods for
multiplication of superior varieties. The
range of markets—traditional, CBI and per-
sonal care—coupled with the variability of
shea butter’s characteristics, make this a
very interesting species to be working with.
For example, varieties in the central areas
(Ghana, Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso) have
high stearin levels and are the traditional
source of raw material for the international
oils and fats processors such as Aarhus United
A/S based in Denmark, Karlshamns AB in
Sweden and Loders Croklaan in The
Netherlands.
Shea butter from the eastern and west-
ern edges of the range have been typically
avoided since they have higher olein content
and lower melting points, for instance, vari-
eties in Burkina Faso produce ‘hard’ shea
butter with a melting point of 37°C whereas
those in Uganda produce shea ‘oil’ that is
liquid at 25°C (sought after for making ‘soft’
shea butter cosmetics). Furthermore, certain
areas, many of which have not been well
researched and are also away from the high
stearin zones, have revealed varieties with
significantly higher levels of
bioactive chemicals (triterpenes,
tocopherols and catechins).
The improvements to the
production of large quantities
of high-quality raw materials
for the edible fats industry com-
bined with the growing trend to
experiment with crude shea but-
ter extraction closer to source
(to add value and to reduce trans-
port costs) other options for
developing the high-value per-
sonal care industry become avail-
able, such as in-country refining.
The current methods for refin-
ing shea butter, with expensive
and complex equipment, do not
currently encourage investment
in Africa. Species variability
may provide an opportunity for
selection of varieties that could
simplify this process. For exam-
ple, use of raw material with
lower gum content would allow
dry fractionation techniques that
are cheaper and more suitable
in tropical regions than those that use inor-
ganic solvents.
Despite the constraints still facing the
shea butter industry, it can be seen that new
and exciting options exist for this ancient
commodity of Africa. Improvements to qual-
ity control, a growing range of marketing
alternatives and the use of appropriate tech-
nologies should soon make it possible to
develop the African shea industry for the
benefit of all.
Peter N. Lovett is a research consultant based
in Ghana and involved in shea tree devel-
opment programs across the species range.
Contact him at: West Africa Trade Hub,
c/o USAID, P.O. Box 1630, Accra, Ghana;
e-mail: plovett@watradehub.com ■
information
The West Africa Trade Hub (WATH) is a trade facilitation and development project of
the West Africa Regional Program of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
WATH’s primary mandate is to facilitate West Africa’s international trade and to help
businesses take advantage of the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows
duty-free, quota-free imports of many products into the U.S. market. WATH promotes
the export of shea butter, among other products, to the United States. Demand for shea
butter in the U.S. natural beauty care industry is growing fast. On the supply side, shea
butter results from processing of the nut of the shea tree, which grows mostly in West
Africa’s savannahs, harvested by women who carry out the initial processing locally. For
more details, visit the WATH website at netlink: www.watradehub.com.
The finished balls of
shea butter.
PETER LOVETT
inform • May 2005 • Volume 16 (5) COVER FEATURE 275
