Africa produces approximately 1,760,000 metric tons (MT) of raw shea nuts a year, and historically, most of this stayed within the African continent to supply domestic demand. The shea export market traditionally traded raw shea kernels rather than shea butter or other finished products.
Where are shea nuts produced in Burkina Faso?
The Sissili and Ziro provinces are the most important production centres. Further, shea nuts are the country’s third most important export after cotton and livestock. Since both shea nuts and shea butter are exported in huge quantities from Burkina Faso, their quality is extremely important.
How are shea nuts processed?
Subsequently, the nuts are processed by boiling, roasting, or sun-drying. Boiling in water prevents the shea seeds from germinating and prevents hydrolytic degradation of the extracted shea butter. The boiled shea nuts are sun-dried, and then the dried shea nuts are cracked to obtain the kernels.
How is shea butter fractionated?
Once refined, shea butter can be fractionated into two parts: a creamy fat known as shea stearin and a liquid oil called shea olein—otherwise known as shea oil. Fractionation separates these two unique components using either a chemical reagent or physical methods like centrifugation.
How is shea oil extracted?
As a result, many shea producers are adopting more mechanized solutions to improve quality and yield. Larger processors use mechanical extraction equipment to recover more oil efficiently. Screw press expellers physically crush the shea kernels to squeeze out shea oil from the solid meal, which exits the expeller as a cake.
How to refine shea butter?
Crude shea butter obtained from the extraction process undergoes many refining steps. The process of how to refine shea butter begins with pretreatment and bleaching, which is followed by deodorisation and deacidification to obtain refined shea butter.