Naturally Made, Thoughtfully Sourced Shea Butter: The Story Behind Inkuto Organics

As featured on Yle, Finland's national broadcaster

When Edem Agbekey-Taylor's newborn developed eczema, she did what her own mother had always done: she reached for shea butter from home. Agbekey-Taylor, originally from Ghana and living in Helsinki, asked her mother to send traditional shea butter and African black soap — the same remedies she'd grown up with. They worked. Other mothers in Finland started asking where they could get some too. That's how Inkuto Organics began.

Sourced from Ghana, made in Helsinki

Every jar of Inkuto Organics shea butter starts the same way it did back then: raw ingredients — shea butter, cold-pressed coconut oil, cocoa-pod ash — sourced directly from Ghana, then handcrafted in small batches in Helsinki, with nothing added. No fillers, no water, no unnecessary extras.

More than an ingredient list

What makes the sourcing side of Inkuto Organics different is who it's sourced from: a network of more than 60 widowed women in Ghana.

Widowhood carries a particular financial risk in Ghana. When a husband dies, his relatives can lay claim to land and property that would otherwise pass to his widow, leaving her with little or nothing. The income these women earn supplying ingredients to Inkuto Organics gives them a measure of independence that inheritance alone doesn't guarantee — and it directly funds their children's education. In families stretched thin, daughters are often the first to be pulled from school when money runs short; steady income changes that calculus.

Recognized at home and abroad

In 2016, Agbekey-Taylor was named Finland's Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year for building Inkuto Organics into what it is today. Her story — and Inkuto Organics' sourcing work in Ghana — has been covered by Yle, Finland's national broadcaster, in this feature.

Try it for yourself

Every product still starts with the same simple idea that started the company: shea butter that actually works, made honestly, sourced from people who deserve to benefit from it as much as you do.