Fighting Poverty and Securing Livelihoods in the Sahel through better Management of the Environment
Here is a very informative set of photographs of a training course held in Souté in the south of Tominian, showing the whole sequence of preparation and extraction of the shea butter. It's VERY hard work and often something women will share equipment to help each other.
Once boiled and dried, nuts can be processed at any time during the dry season without the quality deteriorating. If nuts are not boiled within 3 days of harvest, the oils in them start to change composition and the butter extrated can be very smelly. In villages near the capital, the best quality shea butter can sell for 750 fcfa per kilo (about £1) compared to 300 fcfa (less than 50p) for butter made from unboiled nuts.