Narrator: One way to make shea butter
involves pounding and grinding dry shea nuts by hand.
Another way requires two people to push a lever
as a cold-press machine turns shea nut oil
into a creamy pale-yellow butter.
Regardless of the way it's done,
producing shea butter is tedious work.
And depending on how it's made,
it can cost over $50 a kilo.
But this isn't just any shea butter.
This is East African shea butter,
the most expensive version of the commonly known product.
So, what makes East African shea butter different?
And why is it so expensive?
When someone hears "shea butter,"
it's likely they think of the West African variety.
But in East Africa, a different kind of shea nut grows,
a subspecies called nilotica.
The West African paradoxa tree is farmed,
so it grows more abundantly,
but nilotica isn't typically planted.
It grows in the wild in East African countries
like Uganda and Sudan.
East African shea butter can cost more than double
the West African alternative.
That's because it's easier to spread
and absorbs quickly into the skin.
Lucy: This is our nilotica.
Very low melting point, like you see.
When I spread, it easily melts.
And within a few minutes
it will have sunk into my skin pores.
But when we come to
our West African shea butter,
when you spread, this is how it turns out.
It'll remain on top because of the waxy texture.
Narrator: That makes nilotica more desirable
for cosmetics companies,
which use it for butters, oils, and soaps.
And according to Lucy, this is one of the reasons
demand for East African shea butter has grown
both locally and abroad.
In Uganda, nilotica producers are trying to meet
the growing demand.
Narrator: Akello and her peers
have been harvesting shea fruits since 5 a.m.
They're part of the Corner Adwari Mooyao Women's Group,
a self-help group for women in Uganda.
In Uganda, shea producers are primarily
organized women's groups like this.
They start their day early
so they can pick the best fruits before other groups come.
Akello and the other harvesters
pick the fruits off the ground,
once they've already fallen.
Then they remove -- and eat —
the fruit to reveal the shea nut.
They eat it because they won't need it to make the butter,
and it's delicious.
Narrator: Quality control starts here,
with only the best shea nuts moving on to processing.
These are grade-A nuts,
which are whole, undamaged, and untouched by insects.
The nuts are then dried in the sun for a few days
to reduce moisture.
Next, they're carefully cracked
and the kernels are dried again for two weeks.
Now Akello can make the shea butter.
It's usually done one of two ways,
by hand or by machine,
both requiring heavy manual labor.
Making shea butter by hand is an intensive process.
After the nuts dry the second time,
producers heat ash over a fire for 30 minutes.
Then they roast the shea nuts in the ashes
for another 45 minutes, stirring constantly.
This helps prevent mold
and deactivates free fatty acids, or FFAs,
which are harmful to the body.
But they have to be careful.
Too much heat could lead to a dark oil
with high, rather than deactivated, FFA levels.
Then the women spread the nuts on the ground to cool off.
Producers grind the nuts three times.
They take turns pounding,
then muddle the mixture further between rocks,
and, finally, refine the mixture in a mill.
This creates a paste, which they pour into hot water.
Here, the oil they need for the butter
separates from the paste.
Narrator: The oil is removed and packaged for sale locally,
where a kilo costs over $5.
It's mainly used for cooking,
but locals also use it on their skin.
And while it's still pricier than West African shea butter,
this heat-processed butter is a more affordable alternative
to cold-pressed nilotica.
1 kilo of cold-pressed East African shea butter
can reach $12 in Uganda,
and when exported, it's over four times that price.
That's because cold-pressed shea butter is more refined.
It's the cleanest way to extract the oil,
which preserves the nuts' properties.
After harvesting, drying, and grinding the shea nuts,
producers place them in cloth bags
and load them into a cold-press machine.
They've had this machine since 1997.
To use it, two people need to push
each side of the lever in a circle,
pressing and releasing the oil
from the fat in the shea nuts.
When left to rest, the oil hardens into shea butter.
From nut to butter, the whole process can take three weeks.
Today, producers prefer the cold-press method
because they can make bigger batches
of high-quality shea butter.
It can also enhance some of the butter's
most desired properties.
Studies of nilotica have found
that it has significantly higher oleic acid content
than West African shea butter.
It also has lower stearic acid content,
which contributes to the softness of the butter.
This is the West African shea butter,
with a high melting point.
And when it solidifies, it's really hard.
Narrator: Harder textures are more difficult
to integrate into cosmetics.
Lucy says that's why nilotica
has the upper hand in cosmetics.
Her American buyers prefer it
because it absorbs faster into the skin.
But nilotica has other special properties.
The demand at the moment is growing
because of these contents.
The olein, vitamin E,
and then it also has antioxidants
that make it easy.
Especially for cosmetics,
it has to have a healing factor within it.
Narrator: This growing demand is being met
with limited supply.
The supply is a little lower
because the number of producers is still a bit low.
Narrator: The shea tree fruits only once a year,
and producers are still figuring out
how to bulk their harvests.
And while some efforts are underway to farm more shea trees,
the nuts are primarily harvested in the wild,
limiting producers further.
Then there's deforestation.
According to the Ugandan National Forest Authority,
the country has lost 63% of its tree cover
in the past 25 years.
Locals use the wood for charcoal, firewood, and timber.
But nilotica producers hope that as demand continues to grow
and locals learn more about nilotica's value,
they'll work to preserve the trees
and in turn scale up production of East African shea butter.
Lucy: I believe if the marketing strategies are improved
we shall have more sales, more producers,
and the more the buyers,
of which the buyer is already out there.