Organic Shea Butter from Côte d’Ivoire: Modern Technology Meets Traditional Expertise

Interview with Eric Nguetta
Founder and Managing Director of Bio Amandes in Côte d’Ivoire

Shea butter has become an indispensable ingredient for the cosmetics industry. Your company, Bio Amandes, specialises in the production of shea butter. What distinguishes your product from others on the market?

It’s true, shea butter is an all-rounder in body care. It is contained in almost all cosmetic products for the body – be it lip balm, shower gel or bath cream – as well as in products for the face and hair. Shea butter is the product ‘par excellence’ for personal care.

Shea butter from Bio Amandes impresses with its organic quality and its short and traceable value chain. Our shea nuts come from areas which are protected due to their biodiversity. In these areas harvesting is monitored in respect of sustainability. They are processed directly by us to obtain a fresh raw product. Depending on the customer’s wishes, we can then further process the butter. For our production and processing, we rely on both modern technology and traditional expertise in shea butter production. Bio Amandes is the only organic producer in West Africa that also refines its products. From the collection of the shea fruit to the final product – we offer everything from a single source.

Why do you think the organic quality of shea butter is important?

Organic certification guarantees our customers that our product is 100 per cent natural and free from synthetic pesticides and fertilisers. And it confirms that the production respects environmentally friendly agricultural practices. In this way, we not only want to do justice to our customers, but also to our local environment.

Shea butter is extracted from the nuts of the shea tree. Where does your raw material come from?

Shea fruits, which contain the nuts, usually come from wild collection. We collect our shea fruits in virgin forests of the Warigué biodiversity zone near our production site in Ferkéssedougou. This is the reason why we have very short distances and can process the nuts fresh.

Biodiversity zone means that any form of agriculture is prohibited in these areas. The shea fruits are therefore not harvested. Only shea fruits that have fallen naturally from the trees and have been lying on the ground for less than three days are collected. We work with collectors – mainly women – who live in the neighbouring communities and have direct access to the Warigué biodiversity zone. This year, 2,830 women worked for us.

Can you give us an insight into the next production steps? What happens to the wild-collected shea fruits?

The shea nut collectors follow a procedure that is recognised as good shea collection and production practice by international organisations such as USAID, the Global Shea Alliance and FIRCA (Fonds Interprofessionnel pour la Recherche et le Conseil Agricoles). This process includes quality-preserving practices for collecting, cooking, drying, shelling, and storing the shea nuts. The unprocessed fruit kernels collected are then sold by the collectors to Bio Amandes.

Our production process is then divided into two steps: In the first step, the raw shea butter is ex-tracted from the nuts. This is a mechanical process that first involves crushing the nuts in a mill and then pressing them. In the second step, the shea butter is melted and filtered. We offer as well as process both our mechanically processed shea butter and shea butter produced using traditional artisanal methods. To increase our volume, we buy in traditionally processed butter from selected women’s cooperatives. The women create the raw product shea butter, which can also be purchased in this raw form or further processed in our factory on request.

By refining, we can improve the colour and texture of the shea butter. Some customers prefer a butter with a smoother texture to facilitate absorption, others prefer a whiter colour to emphasise purity, etc. Depending on the customer’s wishes, we take care of refining and deodorising. To do this, the shea butter is heated in a vacuum in our refinery plant under certain parameters. This is how we obtain the butter that meets the customer’s quality requirements.

You also use shea butter produced using traditional artisan methods. Why?

The combination of both mechanically and artisanally produced shea butter enables us to respond quickly to demand. We also want to be a reliable partner to the women’s cooperatives. This means that we regularly purchase the shea butter produced by women from rural areas.

What quality criteria do you pay attention to during production?

Our shea butter must meet international quality standards and be free from impurities. This is our top priority. Our refinery helps us fulfil these quality criteria while we also adhere to the rules of hygiene and good manufacturing practices set out in the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) guidelines. To give our customers further reassurance, we have initiated the process for HACCP certification and we expect to receive it next year.

We also attach great importance to compliance with organic standards. We are certified in accordance with the EU and US organic standards. And we are certified according to the Fair for Life standard for social and fair trade. We are planning to extend the Fair for Life certification to a larger number of villages to enable more women to sell their shea nuts at a good price.

How important is international trade for Bio Amandes?

Today, 100 per cent of our production already goes to Europe. International quality standards are therefore also our benchmark. Over the next few years, we want to increase our production capacity and expand our business relationships with Europe. The Import Promotion Desk (IPD), an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), is support-ing us in this endeavour. For example, the IPD connected us with interested buyers at the Biofach trade fair and we were able to conclude very satisfactory business deals. An importer from Germa-ny has already visited us here in Ferkéssedougou and we are now working together on a long-term basis. Another company has also supported us with its technical expertise. The IPD’s contacts, direct trade and personal dialogue with our European partners are helping us to make pro-gress. We are looking forward to further expanding international trade.

What are your plans for the future?

We are planning to expand. However, we not only want to increase production capacity, but also recycle the waste from shea butter production. The shea nut shells can be processed into char-coal and the fatty acids produced during the refining process can be used in soap production. We want to develop new production lines for these two byproducts – that is our vision for the future.

https://www.bio-amandes.com/en/

https://www.importpromotiondesk.de/