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THE LAND
Nobody planted the shea parkland and nobody can replace it quickly. A tree cut for charcoal this year is gone for a generation.
Shea trees grow wild across the savanna, mixed into farmland rather than standing in plantations. They take upwards of fifteen years to bear fruit properly and can produce for decades after that, which makes them one of the few assets in the landscape that reward being left alone.
They are also worth money as charcoal, and charcoal pays this month rather than next season. Where gathering income is unreliable, cutting becomes rational for the household doing it. That is the mechanism by which a supply chain destroys itself, and it is not solved by asking people to be patient.
This is why we treat pricing as an environmental question rather than only a commercial one. A collector group with dependable seasonal income has a reason to keep the trees standing that no campaign can manufacture. How pricing works.
Only if gathering pays reliably. Our part of that is agreeing prices before the season and paying on the day.
There is no plantation to expand. Supply grows by more communities gathering, not by more hectares being cleared. Who gathers.
Fifteen years or more to fruit. Losses to charcoal and clearing are effectively permanent on any commercial timescale.
We are a trading company, not a conservation body. What we control is how we buy, and we would rather say that than claim a landscape programme we do not run.
If you are buying from us and need detail on how a lot was sourced, ask. We would rather answer than be taken on trust.