Decorated with a simple label, a small yellow pot of ‘Lulu Life’ sits in Eunice Elisama’s hand, brought to Juba to see if it -- probably Sudan’s only export product processed in the South -- can sell in the boom town.

Lulu is what Sudanese call shea butter, and here it takes the form of a rich body cream with restorative properties, loaded with vitamins and natural anti-oxidants. Mostly produced in western Africa – although the South’s Lulu is actually of a better quality – it’s prized on the international market although because of its scarcity, is less well known than its competitors like cocoa butter.

The Lulu fruit oil has been used for generations by Southerners as a traditional emollient especially for children explains Elisama. But since 2000 – and across the peace agreement – she and her Lulu colleagues have been bringing it to the local regional market using improved technology and the hard work of the some 600 Southern women in seven counties processing the lulu nut for cash income.

As well as exploring the capital’s market, heaving with internationals and newly moneyed politicians in four wheel drives, Elisama and Kristin Belknap have registered ‘Lulu Works’ in the South while in Juba, with both the commerce and agriculture ministries.

For now, the bulk of the 30 to 40 tons of the wholly natural oil produced every year stays in the South, where it is sold at affordable prices to those local to Lulu Works centers.

There’s more cash in Southern markets now with the peace and more goods flowing into them says Belknap, an American with a long-standing commitment to the South.

Things are different from the days when sometimes Lulu soap was the only kind around, or when the women had to watch the value of their edible Lulu oil crash when the WFP oil landed. But peace time also means getting serious about making the business of producing the luscious cream self-sufficient and away from its dependency on grants.

Elisama and Belknap know that this will mean attracting the international market with a product that not only contains a natural beauty potion but looks fancy too. Today, only thirty per cent of what is made gets to Kenya by being back-loaded on trucks bringing in the basic household goods the South relies on its neighbors for (during the war years Lulu flew on humanitarian planes coming back from bringing relief items and NGO workers to the war-ravaged SPLA areas).

But there, another group of Southern women formulate the Lulu with natural perfumes and package the product for a marked-up product mostly for tourists. Both Belknap and Elisama know that this mark-up will be the making of Lulu Works, will lift it from a business still dependent on funding to a self-sufficient enterprise.

But some things they hope won’t change. Its cooperative feel - rather than being owned by shareholders or big investors - is what they’re keen Lulu Works retains. “Our objective is for the benefits to stay with the producers,” explains Belknap, “all the components of the process should be in the hands of the women”.