Burkina Karité

Production costs account for 30 % of the export sales price is for and an additional 20% for running the cooperative (this includes interest on potential loans). This leaves 50% net profit for the women who have produced the butter.

Customers are mainly cosmetic companies in Europe. The market for karité butter for cosmetic use is increasing and the fair trade pressure on companies will help direct sales from producers to customers, instead of going through local traders. Butter of a good quality and on-time delivery will be very important.
Examples of potential customers would be the company Body Shop buying its karité butter from women associations in Ghana, and/or the company Occitan buying it from women associations in Burkina Faso.

The innovative aspect of the plan is the creation of cooperatives of women associations. Each association maintains its independance and each woman will be receiving payment for the karité butter in accordance with the quantity she produced. The women join their production in order to have access to the export market. Additionaly, the use of the existing grinding mill will bring more resources to the association.
Existing competitors are:
- the traders of butter and/or karité nuts
- other organisations promoting the karité
- other countries exporting karité butter: Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Benin
- buyers from cosmetic companies who come to buy karité nuts to process them in Europe (transport cost linked with processing cost in Europe should help to convert these customers to buy butter instead of almonds, as long as quality level and deliveries are respected).

Business partners are the women associations of remote villages assembled into a cooperative on one side and the potential customers in Europe on the other.

Our customers would be cosmetic- and/or chemical companies in Europe. Studies exist of the main importers in Europe (one has been made by the the dutch institute CBI: centre for the promotion of imports from developing countries). Direct contact with the potential customers explaining the purpose of the cooperative will first be done by the A.S.A.P. Foundation until a person is employed and trained to follow up on the customers. A web-site of the cooperative will be created for more exposure. Press releases should also give exposure to the cooperative and its aims.

To produce 60 kg of butter, which takes around 50 hours of work, a woman involved in this plan will get a net revenue of about €30,- . This gives an hourly rate of €0,60 when, if they work in the cotton fields, they will only get €0,10/hour. For references, a construction worker receives €0,20 per hour and a young teacher is paid € 75 per month.
If the same woman sells her butter on the local market, she will get about a third of the revenue she would get on the export market and her net income will be close to zero. She will also produce less and work harder, since the mechanisation of the transformation process will not be improved. It takes at least 50% more time of processing if she does not use the grinding mill.
As already mentioned, besides the individual profit, the grinding mill of the association is also benefitting from the additional processing.
The evolution of the cooperative will depend of on the market needs. Volume produced and the number of villages involved in the cooperative will have to be adjusted in consequence.
The butter produced in the village is raw and will get oxydized with time if not neutralised. This operation is either done by big companies within Burkina Faso or directly by the customer in Europe. The development of a neutralising machine adapted to the needs of the cooperative, will give it a competitive edge: possibility to stock butter in Burkina Faso giving some flexibility between production and delivery time and a better price for the neutralised butter.