By Omotayo Edubi
The execution of Covid-19 protocols has affected businesses over the world including women dealing with fat extracted from the nut of the African shea tree which is called shea butter.
Shea butter has benefits such as the production of chocolate, yoghurt, candies, baby food and skin care products.
According to Iddi Zakaria, National coordinator of Shea Network Ghana, 90% of Ghana’s shea butter exports go into the food industry, while the remaining 10% is used for skincare, involving women in local communities.
“Shea oil is traded along three levels of the value chain, processed and sold to aggregators who then sell to large buyers, mostly in-country,” says Zakaria.
In October, 2021, the United Nations Development Programme pledged an additional U.S.$162,000 to some women shea butter producers in the Kumbungu District to acquire more machinery to make their operations easier.
