Quality and certifications
Quality standards
There are three quality standards, two international and one Ugandan, for shea butter as shown below. However, there is none that is specific to Nilotica shea butter that underlines and highlights the differences of the two shea butters.
The quality of finished Nilotica shea butter is determined by two factors:
- contamination or purity and
- the actual oil quality.
Oil quality is assessed by the parameters listed below. Contami nation is usually determined by measuring the amount of lead,
mercury and pesticides present in the shea butter. As all quality
Ensuring Quality in Processing
Throughout the production process there are several challenges that heavily influence the quality of the finished product.
1. Post-harvest handling
The shea nuts should be gathered from the forest floor after they have fallen. They cannot be picked from the tree. If they are still
on the tree the fruits are not yet ripe and will not yield high quality shea butter. This requires gathering them by hand which is also the only way to pick up the fruits that have fallen in tall grasses and other bushes. Afterwards, the nuts must be immediately washed and de-pulped. This is again done by hand. The fruit flesh is very sweet and used for making sweets and lemonade. It is mainly given as treats to children, and sometimes also sold for extra income. In addition, the fruit flesh can be dried for later consumption.
Once the women have the de-pulped glossy shea nuts, they are dried for the first time in the sun. For the best quality this must be done on a clean surface area, not on the bare ground, to avoid external contamination by dust, small stones, leaves and other material.
Sometimes, special drying platforms are built out of concrete or are constructed with sticks and an iron sheet, but more often
a simple tarpaulin is used for this process.
After drying, the nuts are cracked to extract the kernel that is
inside. At this time, the first grading is done. Dark coloured, mouldy or otherwise infested nuts are immediately discarded
to avoid contaminating the other nuts. Next they are dried again for about one week on a clean surface to reduce the moisture
content in the kernels to below 0.5 %. This is essential to ensure a long shelf life of the nuts and to avoid moisture in the oil that
will make it go rancid. The moisture can be checked with a moisture meter or by assessing it by pressing and breaking the nuts, as
is done more often. When the moisture content is too high, the nuts tend to be soft and very light in colour. After drying, the nuts
are sorted again to take out any nut of lesser quality
2. Storage
After properly sorting the shea nuts, they must be stored in ginny/jute sacks in a clean, dark and dry environment, free from rodents and other infestations. If this is done properly, nuts can be stored for up to 1 year without loss of quality. However, nowadays the most common storage bags are made of woven polypropylene. This is problematic because the material is not breathable. As a result, these bags retain any moisture and heat that might be present in the nuts and increase the chances of the nuts going bad quickly.
Once stored, the shea nuts need to be inspected at least once a month to ensure that they are not rotting or (becoming) infested
with bugs.
3. Oil extraction and packaging
As Nilotica shea butter is mostly used on the international market as a cosmetics ingredient, it is always recommended to ensure that production is carried out in a food-grade production environment with relevant quality control measures in place. Depending on the type of production method specified earlier, this may or may not be possible to a certain extent.
However, it is important to know the production environment and the standards that a producer maintains. Even without Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), ISO, or HACCP certification, the producer should always have a documented quality management system in place.
To date, no information is available on the extent to which this is applied within the industry in Uganda.
