₦airaland Forum

I have been working more closely with the shea butter trade recently, and one thing that keeps coming up is the question of how buyers can verify the shea butter they are buying.

If you are buying shea butter in larger quantities, I think some simple questions are worth asking:

Where was it produced?
Who produced it?
When was it produced?
What was done to the product after production?
Is there a batch record?
Has the product been tested?

We are currently going through this process with a batch of handcrafted unrefined shea butter produced by Yekos Farms in Yekosa Masa Community, Lavun LGA, Niger State.

The batch has been assigned the code AF-SB-YKF-0826-01. We have completed production and are currently carrying out physical examination while waiting for the laboratory analysis.

For me, this has been a practical lesson in how much information can be documented around a single batch of an agricultural product.

For those who buy or trade shea butter in Nigeria, what information do you normally request from your supplier before buying?