La Caribeña News Newsroom | Georgetown, Guyana | 28 June 2026
IN BRIEF Sankofa Global, a Guyanese cosmetics venture led by Simone Barker, imports shea, mango and cocoa butter from Ghana and finishes them in Guyana with a proprietary blend. The brand showed its range at the International Building Expo 2026 in June. |
Most of the raw butters and oils behind Guyana’s handmade skincare come from far away, and getting hold of them is harder than it looks. Sankofa Global, a Georgetown cosmetics venture, has built its whole model around that problem. At the International Building Expo 2026, founder Simone Barker laid out shea, cocoa and mango butter sourced from Ghana and carried into the Guyanese market.
Barker started the business after watching a wave of local entrepreneurs move into hair care and skincare. She makes those products herself, so she knows the inputs cold: shea, mango and cocoa butter, coconut oil, castor oil. Rather than buy them third-hand through North American resellers, she works closer to the source. Family in Ghana oversees the supply, and the goods arrive in bulk for retail buyers and for other small manufacturers.
Her card states the promise plainly: handmade organic butters, oils and soap, globally sourced, ethically acquired and locally packaged. The range also runs to African black soap, an African exfoliating sponge and hair pomade. Everything, she says, is organic and raw.
What does Sankofa Global sell?
Sankofa Global sells raw cosmetic butters, oils and related body-care goods, in retail sizes and in bulk for other makers. The catalogue centres on the butters that hair-care and skincare formulators reach for first:
• Shea butter, mango butter and cocoa butter• Coconut oil and castor oil• African black soap• African exfoliating sponge• Hair pomade
Barker sells two ways. Retail packs go to individual customers, while bulk quantities go to the small businesses that fold these butters and oils into their own soaps, creams and hair products. That dual model lets a one-person importer serve both the shelf and the supply chain behind other local brands.
Where do the ingredients come from, and why Ghana?
The butters come from Ghana, and the choice is deliberate. Shea is the clearest case. The shea tree is indigenous to Africa and grows in a band of roughly 21 countries known as the shea belt, stretching across the continent’s semi-arid savanna. It does not grow anywhere else, which is why buyers outside Africa usually pick up shea second-hand through online sellers in the United States or Canada. Barker wants to shorten that chain and become a more direct source for the Guyanese market.
Cocoa butter follows similar logic. Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, behind only Côte d’Ivoire, and its beans are prized by premium chocolate makers, so the cocoa butter that comes with that reputation is high grade. Mango butter, Barker notes, is processed in only a handful of places such as Brazil, India and parts of Africa, with no maker she knows of inside this region. Buying at volume from Ghana lets her reach for economies of scale and a workable resale price, helped by family who manage the sourcing on the ground.
What does Sankofa add in Guyana?
Sourcing is one half of the model. The other is what happens once the containers land. Beyond packaging, the imported butters and oils are finished in Guyana with a proprietary blend before they reach the shelf, the step that turns raw African inputs into Sankofa’s own retail line rather than a plain re-export.
That value-added step changes the story from simple importing to local manufacturing, the kind of activity Guyana’s agencies have been urging producers toward. It also gives the brand a reason to exist beyond price: a finished, locally prepared product that a shopper cannot get by ordering raw shea online.
Why is sourcing from Africa so difficult?
Distance is not the real obstacle. Trade plumbing is. Guyana does little direct trade with Africa, so the established import lanes run to India and China instead. Barker says that makes it hard to bring in certain African goods at all, and that she leaned on personal and family connections in Ghana to open a channel that the market does not offer off the shelf.
That is a small, concrete example of South-South commerce, trade between developing economies that skips the old routes through North America and Europe. A single importer wiring Georgetown to Accra will not move national trade figures. It does show where the demand sits, and how much of the early work still depends on private relationships rather than formal trade links between the two regions.
Where can shoppers buy Sankofa Global products?
Sankofa Global sells direct, to retail customers and to the small manufacturers who buy raw butters and oils in bulk.
Barker exhibited at the International Building Expo 2026 within the Small Business Bureau’s section. The expo ran from 25 to 28 June at the Guyana National Stadium in Providence, drawing a national crowd that gave a small cosmetics importer rare reach beyond its usual customers.
For Guyanese shoppers, that puts the raw butters behind a lot of premium skincare within reach without an overseas order. For other makers, it puts a bulk supplier on this side of the Atlantic. Retail packs and wholesale pricing are available on request, and the quickest route to either is a WhatsApp message to +592 648 2118.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Sankofa Global?
Simone Barker founded and runs Sankofa Global. She started the venture after seeing demand from Guyanese hair-care and skincare makers for raw butters and oils, and she makes body-care products herself.
What products does Sankofa Global sell?
Raw cosmetic ingredients and body care: shea, mango and cocoa butter, coconut oil and castor oil, African black soap, an African exfoliating sponge and hair pomade. The goods are sold in retail packs and in bulk to other manufacturers.
Why does Sankofa source from Ghana?
Shea is indigenous to Africa and grows only there, and Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, which gives it high-grade cocoa butter. Buying at volume from Ghana, supported by family on the ground, lets Barker secure quality and a resale price.
Where do Sankofa’s ingredients come from?
From Ghana. The butters and oils are imported in bulk, with family in Ghana overseeing the supply, then finished in Guyana with a proprietary blend for retail and wholesale buyers.
How can I contact Sankofa Global?
By WhatsApp on +592 648 2118, through the Facebook page sankofa.gy, or by email at [email protected].