Shea – a strategic raw material
Shea kernels from West Africa are a very important and unique raw material at AAK. Over more than 60 years, we have gained extensive knowledge and experience of the raw material and the local communities in which we operate.
Our continued presence in West Africa is essential to us. We monitor selected shea trees to assess the size of the next harvest, and we handle a number of processes to ensure an unbroken supply chain from the collection of shea kernels, to their early treatment and transportation to the harbours, to their warehousing and shipment to Northern Europe.
Shea trees grow in some of the world’s poorest countries. Here, we work directly with the women who collect the shea kernels, building capacity in local communities. Our work in these areas includes the formation of women’s groups in the villages and teaching the women about how to maintain the quality of the kernels.
In Burkina Faso, we also run projects with the United Nations Development Program. This includes sponsoring tools so the women can spend less time on household chores and more on collecting shea, which improves their income and standard of living.
Combined with our involvement in the Global Shea Alliance, of which we are a founder member, these activities demonstrate our commitment to the sustainable sourcing of shea in West Africa. We are proud of our achievements and are committed to continue our work.
"AAK in Africa"
The film shows an example of how AAK conducts its CSR work in Africa in cooperation with the UN Development Program (UNDP), and it also describes our process for acquiring the shea raw material.
The UNDP project aims to install multi-functional platforms in Burkina Faso - partly to combat poverty, partly to support our strategy to obtain more shea raw material. In practice, the project means that women's work has improved significantly through the availability of simple machines that can be used for a variety of everyday chores, such as husking rice, grinding corn, grinding shea or pumping water.
As the women's household chores are facilitated, they have more time to collect shea. This has in turn generated a higher income, so that children can attend school. This is a work in progress and new machinery is installed continuously in cooperation with the UN.