Buying in a way people can keep doing

Sustainability in this trade is often discussed as a certificate or a logo. We would rather describe the arrangement itself, because the arrangement is what either works or does not: what price is agreed, when it is agreed, who is paid, when they are paid, and whether the same people are willing to sell to us again next season.

Shea is not farmed. The trees grow wild across the savanna, and the nuts are gathered mostly by women, in the months when there is little other income. Nobody planted the crop and nobody can plant more of it quickly, which means the supply depends entirely on whether gathering remains worth the effort. The people who gather it.

That is the whole of the commercial case for buying carefully. A season where collectors are paid late or badly is a season where fewer people gather, and less crop reaches anyone. Our interest and theirs point in the same direction, which is a more reliable foundation than goodwill. How pricing works.

We are cautious about claims. We do not currently hold organic or fair trade certification, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. What we do have is per-lot records tying a batch to the group that supplied it, which is the substance that certification schemes are meant to verify. What we can trace and where we stand on certification.