A hard nut to crack

Great cooks in Cameroon have a secret ingredient: a fine, pale-brown paste made by grinding the roasted kernels of the forest tree species Ricinodendrom heudelotti. A small amount of the paste, known locally as njansang, livens up the flavour of food and thickens soups, making it a valued commodity. Extracted and dried, njansang stores well and fetches good prices on the market. In 2006 a study found that four self-help groups in central Cameroon earned 2.8 million CFA (US$5,500) from the sale of 3,000kg of njansang. Njansang’s high price is related to the long, tedious and labour-intensive artisanal processes used to obtain the commodity from R. heudelotti fruits. This difficult processing procedure represents a major constraint in the value chain, creating a bottleneck to wider production and commercialisation of this valuable commodity.

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