Assessing the profitability of small scale local shea butter processing: Empirical evidence from Kaleo in the Upper West region of Ghana

Figures & data

Table 1. Description of variables, measurements and a priori expectation of variables for the regression model

Variable	Measurement	A priori expectation
Access to market information	1 if butter processor belonged to a cooperative, 0 otherwise	+
Savings	Ghana cedis	+
Credit access	1 = yes, 0 otherwise	+
Household size	Number	+
Experience	Years	+
Time	Days	+/−
Record keeping	1 if a processor keeps record, 0 otherwise	+
Output	Kilograms	+

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of socio-economic variables

Variable	Description	Number	Percentage (%)
Access to market information	Yes	84	76.4
	No	26	23.6
Credit access	Yes	68	61.8
	No	42	38.2
Record keeping	Yes	60	54.6
	No	50	45.4
	Mean	Minimum	Maximum
Household size	8	3	15
Experience	21.7	11	37
Savings	84.3	50	200
Time	7.3	2	13
Output	397.8	90	1,700

Source: Field data (2016).

Table 3. Estimates of profitability indicators

Variable	Mean	Std. dev.	Min.	Max.
Gross margin	163.2445	80.24311	62	390.3
Net income	34.64455	78.58793	−86	270.3
Net return on investment	0.1809199	0.3954421	−0.423645	1.50417

Table 4. Estimates of determinants of profitability

Variables	Coefficients	Std. error	t-statistic	p > t
Market info.	28.50868*	15.81135	1.80	0.074
Output	0.0886755	0.0551036	1.61	0.111
Time	−10.11165**	4.502635	−2.25	0.027
Credit access	27.15785**	13.86526	1.96	0.053
Record keeping	19.20463	14.74906	1.30	0.196
Experience	2.383374***	.8139831	2.93	0.004
Savings	0.3439626*	0.1903137	1.81	0.074
Household size	8.552982***	2.111163	4.05	0.000
Number of obs.	110
F-statistic	57.36
Prob. > F	0.000
R^2	0.8374

Note: Dependent variable is Gross margin..

* p = 0.1.

** p = 0.05.

*** p = 0.01.