Some businesses begin with a businessplan. Vitara began with a friendship.

Tom Savalle, Willem Oomens and Joost Westerhout first travelled to Ghana as part of a programme during their studies. It was there they met JohnCarl Dunyo and Mawuse Gyisun who became friends. The friendship and the connection stayed, long after they returned home. So did the question raise: what does it actually take to create change that lasts?

They started exploring the idea of a foundation supporting rural women and their children. Over time, it became clear that lasting change required something more than good intentions. It meant building real economic opportunity.

“If you really want to make a difference, you have to create the conditions for people to earn a sustainable income themselves.” — Tom Savalle

Their focus settled on Northern Ghana.

Shea butter, made from the nuts of the shea tree which grows across a stretch of savannah in West and East Africa, had quietly become one of the most in-demand ingredients in the global cosmetics and food industries. The market was growing. But the women in Northern Ghana who spent their days harvesting the nuts and processing the butter were seeing almost none of that growth in their own pockets.

Mawuse had spent years watching this same dynamic play out. Together, they built what would become Vitara, then known as Sommalife, with one clear purpose: make sure the value created by these women actually reaches them.

The early days were modest. A handful of international clients, small-scale production, local distribution. In the early days, the team ran a crowdfunding campaign and raised over €40,000. For a young company with a bold ambition, it was a meaningful vote of confidence.

The challenge went beyond logistics. Many of the women Vitara worked with had no smartphone and limited access to formal financial services. Payments had historically been made in cash, inconsistent and hard to verify. From the start, Vitara built financial literacy training into its model alongside its commercial work, because building a fair supply chain meant investing in the people at its foundation.

 Tens of thousands of farmers have since joined the platform.

At the heart of Vitara’s operation is TreeSyt, a proprietary digital platform that traces commodities from farm to final buyer. Field agents use it to arrange logistics, record farmer profiles, purchases and training activities, even offline in areas with poor connectivity.

For international buyers, the platform delivers verified real-time traceability throughout the local supply chain and real-time impact data. For farmers, it means direct digital payments through mobile money. A partnership with MTN Ghana makes the infrastructure work in practice. The shift from cash to digital is about more than convenience. It’s about visibility and fairness at every step.

“The goal is to close the blind spots. To use a simple, accessible approach through our platform to shift where value lands in the supply chain.” — Tom Savalle

Tom is candid about what Vitara has had to learn along the way: you cannot build everything at once, and real impact depends on a sustainable business underneath it.

Vitara’s impact framework rests on three pillars: creating and sustaining jobs, enabling direct and transparent payments, and building end-to-end traceability into the supply chain. When farmers cannot earn a stable income, communities face difficult choices, including cutting down the very shea trees their livelihoods depend on. Vitara’s model is designed to reduce that pressure, offering a sustainable path that protects forests while improving agricultural yields.

“You can create jobs. But if the model isn’t sustainable, the impact doesn’t stick. The goal is to give a large number of people the means to support themselves.” — Tom Savalle

According to an independent study by 60 Decibels, 81% of farmers in Vitara’s network report higher income from trading with Vitara, and 72% report a positive effect on their recovery from climate shocks.

Vitara’s sights are set well beyond Northern Ghana. The same structural failures that exist in Ghana, non-transparent pricing, disconnected farmers, missing traceability, repeats across the shea industry throughout West Africa.

 “In 10 years, we want to be operating across all of West Africa, with at least one million women farmers connected to international markets and more than ten million trees in the ground.” — Tom Savalle

It’s a bold vision. But in Ghana, the work is already underway.