By Steven Mason, VP of Sales, DMI Solutions
June 10, 2026
In the beauty and personal care industry, shea butter is often known as an ingredient: a rich emollient, a conditioning agent, a familiar INCI name, and a staple in body butters, creams, lotions, hair care, and countless skin care formulas.
But this year, during a sourcing and ingredient exploration trip to Northern Ghana, I was reminded that before shea becomes an ingredient, it is labor. It is community. It is land. It is tradition. And most importantly, it is the work of women.
In my capacity as Vice President of Sales for DMI Solutions, I was invited by AAK to visit its Kolo Nafaso program in Northern Ghana, a direct sourcing initiative focused on women’s empowerment, responsible shea sourcing, transparency, and long-term community impact.
My wife Amanda and I traveled from Accra to Tamale with Jakob, Head of Sustainability for AAK in West Africa. From the moment we met him, it was clear that this was more than a professional visit. Jakob is a deeply committed leader, surrounded by a team (shoutout to Ben & Beth!) that understands the importance of what they are building: a supply chain that connects global brands to the women and communities at the very beginning of the ingredient journey.
AAK’s Kolo Nafaso program was established in 2009 and is built around direct trade, interest-free microcredits, training, traceability, and long-term partnership with women shea collectors across West Africa. According to AAK, Kolo Nafaso had more than 231,000 women enrolled by the end of 2025, and the program has continued to grow significantly in 2026.
Day One: The Sound of Welcome, the Weight of the Work
After arriving in Tamale, we drove nearly three hours through villages and open land with no roads before reaching one of the shea communities participating in the Kolo Nafaso program.
When we arrived, we were greeted by drums, instruments, singing, and some of the most joyful voices I have ever heard. It was pure beauty. Pure energy. Pure welcome.
Then the work began.
In the United States, we love shea butter. We use it in countless products. We market it for moisture, softness, nourishment, and care. But standing in Northern Ghana, watching the women who collect and process shea kernels, I saw the reality behind the ingredient in a way I will never forget.
The work is hard. Truly hard.
And it is work done exclusively by women.
Women carrying heavy loads of shea nuts on their heads with a strength and ease that many strong men would struggle to match. Women working under intense heat. Women moving with purpose, skill, and endurance. I tried to participate, and I lasted only minutes compared to the sun-up to sun-down labor these women carry out to supply a global market.
That experience changed how I will speak about shea butter forever.
Building Stoves From the Ground Up
That day, the shea farmers were working with AAK trainers to learn how to build improved cook stoves used in the processing of shea nuts. They were using earth and clay, literally shaping the stoves from the ground beneath them.
Watching them form something so functional and important from the land itself was incredible. These cook stoves are not just tools. They are part of making the work safer, more efficient, and more sustainable for the women processing the shea kernels that eventually make their way into global supply chains.
I tried my hand at making a stove. I failed quickly.
But the moment mattered because it gave me even a small physical understanding of the skill, patience, and labor required. It is one thing to admire an ingredient on a specification sheet. It is another thing entirely to stand in the place it comes from and attempt, even briefly, to do the work yourself.
Listening to the Women
After participating in the stove-building activity, I walked through the community with my guide, Kwabena, and spoke directly with the women involved in the program.
Again and again, I heard the same message.
The work is hard. Water is scarce. Life is not easy.
But AAK, through Kolo Nafaso, has made the process safer, more organized, and fairer.
Several women explained that before the program, they were often at the mercy of foreign traders or middlemen. They did not always know whether they were receiving a fair price. They were often forced to accept whatever was offered. Today, through the Kolo Nafaso structure, they described a clearer market, fairer trade practices, and more confidence in the value of the shea kernels they sell.
That transparency matters.
It matters to the women. It matters to their families. And it should matter to every brand that uses shea butter in its products.
A System Run by Women
One of the most powerful things I learned was that the women are not simply participants in the program. They help run the system.
From village to village, there are leadership structures led by women. Each village has roles such as president, secretary, and treasurer to manage the relationship with AAK, support organization within the group, and help ensure women have access to banking.
For many of these women, access to a bank account was not something they had before. Through the support of the program, that financial access has created new opportunities and new independence.
In one community, I learned that the women had long wanted a school for their children. So they pooled portions of their earnings together and built one.
That is impact.
Not a slogan. Not a marketing phrase. Real impact.
Money earned from shea helped build a school. A supply chain helped create a future-facing community asset. And women who were once limited in their financial power are now helping determine what their communities need and how to build it.
Economic Power, Personal Pride
During my interviews, many women spoke about the pride they feel in being able to contribute financially to their households.
They talked about helping their husbands, supporting their families, and no longer having to depend completely on someone else for every financial need. This was not said with anger or division. It was said with pride.
I saw it in their faces.
They were proud to earn. Proud to contribute. Proud to have their own. Proud to be part of something that gives them both income and dignity.
That is the kind of empowerment that cannot be fully captured in a presentation. You have to see it. You have to hear it in their voices.
Day Two: Understanding the Scale
On the second day, we visited AAK’s office in Ghana and learned more about the full scope of the Kolo Nafaso program.
The scale is massive.
AAK describes Kolo Nafaso as a direct women’s group supply chain that provides long-term partnership, a buying guarantee, interest-free microcredits, training, and traceability. AAK also states that women remain free to decide who they sell their kernels to, an important detail that reinforces the program’s focus on choice and partnership rather than dependency.
In the office, we saw a map of the villages connected to the program. More than 2,000 communities are part of the broader network, and a small red dot on the map they showed me marked the village Amanda and I had visited, it was named Kenashe Village.
Seeing that map was humbling.
The village we visited was one point in a much larger system — but because we had spent time there, that one point now had faces, names, songs, conversations, and stories attached to it.
Transparency That Builds Trust
One of the things that impressed me most was the level of transparency AAK provided.
They allowed me to see the program directly. They allowed me to speak with the women freely. They allowed me to ask questions. They opened the doors to the field, the office, the people, and the process.
In my years in the beauty and personal care industry, AAK stands out as one of the most transparent ingredient suppliers I have encountered.
That matters because brands today are asking better questions. Consumers are asking better questions. And manufacturers like DMI Solutions must be prepared to understand not only what an ingredient does in a formula, but where it comes from, how it is sourced, and who is impacted by its use.
Why DMI Solutions Went to Ghana
DMI Solutions wanted to see this program firsthand because responsible innovation cannot happen from behind a desk alone.
We can read about shea. We can formulate with shea. We can talk about shea in sales meetings and customer presentations. But to truly understand the ingredient, we needed to see the source.
We needed to understand the people, the process, the land, and the impact.
Now that we have seen it, we believe more brands should see it too.
Brands using Kolo Nafaso shea are not just selecting a functional ingredient. They are participating in a supply chain that supports women, families, communities, and a more transparent model of sourcing.
From Ingredient Exploration to Brand Innovation
Following this trip, DMI Solutions is developing an innovation box for our brand partners that will profile shea from the Kolo Nafaso program.
The goal is to connect formulation, storytelling, sourcing, and impact in a way that helps brands create better products with deeper meaning.
This innovation box will highlight the ingredient, the sensory benefits, the formulation opportunities, and the human story behind the shea. It will also give our partners a way to understand what responsible sourcing can look like when it is connected to real people and real communities.
For brand partners interested in seeing what we are creating, we invite you to reach out.
This Ingredient Has a Story
This trip changed me.
It changed how I view shea butter. It changed how I view sourcing. It changed how I think about the connection between beauty products and the people behind the ingredients.
In Tamale, I saw women carrying more than shea nuts.
They were carrying families. Communities. Schools. Economic independence. Tradition. Strength. And hope.
As an industry, we owe it to them to understand the full story.
At DMI Solutions, we are proud to have gone to Ghana to see that story for ourselves. And we are even more proud to help bring that story forward through innovation, formulation, and partnership.
Shea butter is more than an ingredient.
In Northern Ghana, I saw that it is a source of power.
Continuing the Journey
This visit was only the beginning.
In August, I will be returning to Tamale to continue this ingredient exploration and to see the shea processing stage firsthand. After that trip, I will share a follow-up report with our brand partners and industry colleagues on what I learned, what I saw, and how that deeper understanding can help inform better formulation, better sourcing conversations, and better product storytelling.
At DMI Solutions, we believe innovation should not only begin in the lab. It should also begin at the source — with the people, communities, and raw materials that make great products possible.
Stay tuned as we continue exploring the ingredients, stories, and supply chains shaping the future of beauty and personal care.