Buy Uganda Shea Nuts Directly From Exporters & Suppliers - Best of 2024 Market Prices

We provide high-quality Uganda shea nuts/shea butter to the local and export market. We source our Uganda shea nuts from family growers in the country.

Uganda shea nut (Vitellaria paradoxa), goes under various names including the chi tree. With an origin in West Africa, perhaps Ghana, where domestication history runs a millennium back, the tree is readily available in the rainforests of Uganda. The country grows the main East African variety, nilotica or shea butter. The processed nut has a savory, attractive yellow hue when shelled. This can turn to creamy white when it has undergone refining. The fruit is in high demand because it requires about ten years to begin its fruit-bearing timeline after planting. It, however, compensates for the delay by two-century productivity duration. As a testament of its importance, shea butter oil is the number two export commodity in Africa in the heels of oil palm. This is because the nut has about 48% oil in its total dry matter.

Like its name belies, shea butter is highly made up of fat, most of which is saturated at 234 percent of the daily value. Indeed, the fat content more than makes up for lack of other nutrients. Its uses range from consumption to cosmetic production. It enhances the skin, treats eczema and serves as hair nourishment.

We source our shea nuts from family growers who practice small-scale ‘moo yao’ farming, as shea butter is known in the Acholi vernacular. Most of our sources come from the north of the country where the farmers have as little as one acre and maximum two acres of cultivated land. We make sure that our sources use organic soil enrichment and employ chemicals sparingly.

We harvest about 0.4 kilograms of shea butter seeds from every Uganda shea nut fruit. This translates to about forty-five kilograms for all fruits in a single tree in each harvest year. Most of our workers, like in other parts of Africa like Ghana, are women. They have a knack for picking the fallen seeds and store them temporarily in baskets in readiness for processing.

We process Uganda shea nuts by simply de-husking them. This involves the cutting out of the outer fruit, which leaves a few seeds inside. We then transfer these to wire-mesh in the sun for drying. This ensures there is proper removal of impure particles. The nuts can either undergo roasting or are packed raw.

Roasted shea nuts, then go through boiling so that they can produce a paste that when mixed with a few drops of water, produce oil. We then boil this solution to evaporate the excess water and any impure elements. After final sterilization, we then keep the oil into a cool, dry place where it settles into solid shea butter.

We pack the roasted Uganda shea nuts in jute bags of 75 kilograms or 85 kilograms. This measure can differ depending on your exact tonnage and shipping destination. For processed shea butter, we have several airtight tins and plastic packets for preservation.

We store Uganda shea nut seeds at 4° Celsius after drying in readiness for shipment. The same applies to shea butter, which also needs a cool, dry rack for perfect preservation. We use special transportation trucks to convey the by-products to the airport in Entebbe for same-day shipping after packing.

We are therefore your one-stop source of Uganda shea butter that we obtain from Global Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)-certified family growers. We provide tonnage that suits your exact quantity specification as by making a pre-order, you give us ample time to prepare the cargo. As of our prices, they are among the lowest in the market as we mind your budget. Do get in touch or you can make an order today!