Lets Talk Shea Butter

Countries that Produce the Shea Tree

For those that follow me and Olive Angel, you all know that importing Shea Butter is the business.

Well as a company...we attended the International Shea Butter Convention (2012) in Atlanta. It was informative and many other things.

I want to share some information because as a company we distribute Shea Butter.

Here are some Shea Facts:

Shea butter is produced (naturally in the continent of Africa). Most of the packaging that states Unrefined Shea Butter from Africa, has it right technically. We will do more specifics later but I think educating the public about Shea is vital to the success of the Shea Butter Industry as well as the consumers of the product.

There are 19 countries that have access to this product and can be source of the Shea Butter that reaches the United States.

Sources Of Shea Butter

Countries that have the Shea Tree:

East Africa produces Vitellaria Paradoxa

1.      Cameroon ( Central Africa)

2.      Central African Republic ( Central Africa)

3.      Chad ( Central Africa)

4.      Ethiopia

5.      Sudan

6.      Uganda

7.      Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo)

West Africa: produces Vitellaria Nilotica

1. Benin

2. Burkina Faso

3. Cote D'Ivoire

4. Ghana

5. Guinea

6. Guinea Bissau

7. Mali

8. Niger

9. Nigeria

10. Senegal

11. Sierra Leone

12. Togo

All the countries have Grades A-F but the information about how it was extracted, when it was extracted , and the process used are all diffrent.

As a US consumer ask the compnay that distributes your Shea...What grade is your Shea?