About
A small company that takes the long way around
Direct relationships with six named cooperatives. Per-batch lab tests. No anonymous origins. Ships from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Why this exists
Essential Care Plus started in 2021 because the African ingredient aisle of the US natural-products market had a recurring problem: ingredients with serious traditions behind them, chebe, ambunu, shea, moringa, hibiscus, spirulina, were being sold by anonymous brokers who could not name a village or show a lab result. The recipes on the back of the bags were sometimes invented. The price the actual women in the cooperative received was often less than ten percent of the US shelf price.
We started by doing the trip ourselves. One ingredient, one cooperative, one season at a time. We are still small enough that the people we buy from in Mongo, in Bobo-Dioulasso, in Tamale, in Bol, in Sikasso, in Bondoukou, know us by name. That is the whole company.
What we will not do
- Strip the cooperative name off a SKU to white-label it as anonymous origin.
- Rebrand cultivated commodity stock as wild-harvested.
- Ship a batch that is over WHO microcystin spec.
- Use the word “natural” without specifying what we mean.
- Make medical claims about any ingredient. We are not a doctor.
Where we are
Headquarters and warehouse: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Our team is intentionally small, six people in Albuquerque, plus regional partners on the ground in Chad, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Ivory Coast who handle audits and pre-finance disbursement during harvest seasons.
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By the numbers
6
cooperatives, four countries
~1,500
women members across our partners
+19%
average premium above regional gate price
200+
active wholesale buyers