Widow found her fortune in shea butter processing

Leonora Abalo spreads her shea nuts to dry. She says making shea butter has boosteded her income. PHOTO BY TOBBIAS JOLLY OWINY.

What started as a survival mechanism for Leonora Abalo has turned into a game changer, writes Tobbias Jolly Owiny

When Leonora Abalo’s husband passed away in 1996, it seemed like the end of her road. The resident of Gotolal village, Lunangu parish, Pader Town Council shares that she became the family breadwinner. With the high insecurity in northern Uganda at the time, it did not take long before Abalo’s family was forced into an internally displaced people’s camp in Pader Town.
While at the IDP camp, Abalo, a former police officer who retired in 1980 to care for her family, knew that she had to get out of her comfort zone to provide for her family. In 1999, she joined a group of women who went out in the company of UPDF soldiers to gather shea nuts to be processed and sold locally.
This drive enabled her to supplement on the food portions provided by World Food Programme. “I enjoyed patrolling with the soldiers because I knew each trip was securing my family’s livelihood,” she says. She was able to make Shs200,000 savings which came in handy for future investments.

How it started
In 2006, when IDPs were resettled, Abalo continued the business though on small scale. “Around March 2007, I used the Shs200,000 to buy six 100kg bag shea nut stock.” This was her turning point and she has never looked back.
From the six bags, she produced 60 litres of shea butter. She sold her produce to an Italian at $500 (about Shs1.5m at the time). By September 2007, she had bought more 12 bags of shea nuts. This purchase fetched Shs7m and she realised Shs2.3m as profit.

Investment
Her experience convinced many women in Pader District to join shea butter business. This was all the motivation she needed to set up a village savings group for women. At the beginning of 2010, she was among a few female entrepreneurs who were sent on a visit by Cobalt, under Yao project to Mali, one of the leading shea butter producers in West Africa, to learn more on shea butter production. “There, women only use machines to process butter and in raw form for further industrial production unlike us who roast the nuts. I was challenged so I bought a cold press machine to extract butter from the dough as well as a grinding machine,” she says.
“These machines cost Shs8m (Cold press at Shs5m and the grinding machine at Shs3m) but I have saved in terms of labour costs and effectiveness as well as increased production,” she boasts.
Abalo can produce 40 litres of shea butter in 12 hours unlike in the past where it would have taken her four days.

The process
Cold Pressing involves extracting oil and nutrients from the shea nut using an expeller press, or something similar. An expeller press is a machine that puts a great amount of pressure on oil-bearing materials like olives, coconuts and, in this case, shea. Heavy friction and continuous pressure releases oil from the shea and the oil seeps through small openings that do not allow solid shea fibres to enter. Although cold pressing does not extract every last trace oil in the same way that traditional processing does, the process does cut 3-5 hours off the extraction time.

Expenses
From her five acre shea nut garden, Abalo processes and packs the butter in tins of 150g, 300g, 500g, 750g, 1kg, 10litres and 20 litres which she sells at Shs3,000, Shs10,000, Shs15,000 and Shs20,000. Ten litres of shea butter go for Shs200,000 while 20 litres are sold at Shs400,000.
According to her 2016 records, Abalo spent Shs9.8m to buying the nuts, transport, packing materials, processing, labour and maintenance and a profit margin of Shs6m.

Market
To meet market demands, Abalo now buys from other farmers. “I have markets in Jinja and Kampala,” she says. Some of her clients include NGOs and churches.

Challenges
These are some of the hiccups in her business;
• Unstable market for the butter in the country and has accounted to her limited production annually.
• Limited and high priced packaging materials.
• Storage facility to store both the nuts in stock pending production and the ready processed butter awaiting marketing.
“However, I take records of the shea nuts I buy from others, those that I sell out and the records of my expenditures and gross income despite these challenges,” she said.
She said records has helped her determine the strength and progress of her business and has helped her to access loans from banks to expand the business.

Achievements
Abalo says through shea butter she has undertaken several benchmarking trips in the US and Mali. She has also shared her experiences in South Sudan and Kenya where she has now established networks.
She also built herself a home and fends for her family.
Whereas the business has created for her stronger market bonds, she now trains the local community on butter processing and other farming tips.
Although she is a widow, she has bought for herself a 10 acre piece of land on which she has planted trees and has also been in position to provide for her family needs.

Plans
Her dream is to tap into regional markets such as South Sudan and DRC.
She also plans to establish a training centre where local farmers can get skills in agricultural value addition.

Did you know

Ghana is the worlds largest producer of Shea nut. It is estimated that about 9.4 million shea trees are in the country, and these can potentially yield one hundred tonnes of shea nuts worth about US$100 million per year.