Shea Butter Unfairness: Producers Get Next to Nothing
For many companies, the natural progression of business is to grow. They have a product that they offer, and then they decide to produce more of it, boosting their sales and profits.
I’ve been writing about Shea butter for a few years now. It goes without saying I not only love the product but use it regularly on my skincare recipes, from lip balms to day or night creams to body butters, etc.
I REALLY want the women who produce it to get more money for their hard work.
Check this out: “After five days of picking, crushing, roasting, grinding and cooking, 65-year-old Rebecca Atornyege earns eight cedis ($2; £1.40) from selling her shea butter at the market.”
This is from an article by the BBC from 24th May 2016. I doubt things have changed much.
Why does this matter? Because most women who pick, crush, roast, grind and cook the Shea nuts get paid next to nothing while the companies that buy the Shea butter to produce their skincare lines and cosmetics products get almost-free labor, then sell it to you for an exorbitant amount of money in comparison.
I understand there are other expenses involved, but in general, western companies run by one rule: are our profits growing?
Here are the questions I’d like companies to ask themselves:
- Are we growing too much and taking what doesn’t belong to us?
- Are we exploiting people’s labor?
- Are we taking more than our fair share of the profits?
- If no, then are we doing everything in our power to make sure our suppliers are getting a fair price for their work?
If not, then change your ways!
I can’t shut my eyes when a certain group of people get exploited while others get rich.
And this is happening in the Shea butter industry, in my views.
And when you buy Shea butter, you can rest assured that there’s no one from the people that make the most profits in Ghana producing the raw materials, no one picking it from the trees, no one cracking the nuts, no one roasting, grinding, cooking and then processing them into Shea butter.
I have no doubt that most people working for the companies are not even aware of this problem. This is probably just one more unfair fact of how businesses make money amongst many other unfair facts. They just need to either:
- charge you less for your products so the profits go down and things even out a little more
- make sure some of the extra money from profits can go back to the women in Ghana, Uganda and other countries producing the Shea butter
I doubt these things will happen.
My advice is that you support companies that produce high quality Shea butter, insist they buy from their producers at a fair price and pay them directly so they don’t have to pay the middle man.
In the meantime, I’ll keep looking at ways to buy from local communities to make sure the money goes straight to the people making the butter. I use the Shea butter for my own skincare recipes and I give workshops on how to do the same yourself – this is a small business making small money and making sure everything is kept small.
From Africa to my kitchen. And helping others do the same.
I don’t buy skincare from the medium or big companies any more. My skin and my soul are happy, grateful and free.
I’ll leave a couple of links below for you to read and ponder upon.
How little the producers get paid:
Shea butter in Ghana: Hard labour for smooth skin
How much the companies make:
Global Shea Butter Market Expected to Generate a Revenue of $2,281,864.90 thousand by 2028, Growing at a CAGR of 14.0% From 2021 to 2028
Please, do leave me your comments on what can we do to change what’s happening.
