About Alley Pond
Specialty ingredients,
from people who know the difference.
A supplier of raw gum arabic, baobab and hibiscus — direct from where it is grown, harvested and hand-sorted.
Alley Pond supplies raw gum arabic, baobab and hibiscus from Sudan's gum belt — the woodlands where the gum is still gathered, and the rain-fed sands where the karkade grows. Our team brings together over three decades of combined hands-on experience across the gum belt, from harvest and grading to international export. We supply the raw material the world's flavor, food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics makers build on — direct from origin.
Our story
A young company. An old craft.
Alley Pond was founded in New York by people who have spent their working lives in the acacia gum sector — at origin, in processing, and across international markets. A specialty ingredient is bought on judgment: Senegal or Seyal, mud-soil or sand-soil gum, HPS or cleaned lump, a strong crop year or a thin one — calls that take years in the material to make correctly, and that decide what arrives at your line. Our team brings together three decades of that judgment, combined, passed from person to person, season after season.
The company represents the culmination of those decades: the relationships, the reputation, the intellectual property and the accumulated judgment of a career spent close to the tree and close to the buyer. We don't claim a long corporate history. We claim something rarer: the expertise that only time at origin can build.
Selection, grading, quality control, documentation and export run under one roof and one standard — no hand-offs, no intermediaries between the judgment and the paperwork.
The people who decide what ships are the people who answer your questions.
A fully integrated organization
Every link in the chain, under one roof.
Six capabilities working as one.
Origin sourcing
Direct access to gum arabic supply at origin, season after season, through vetted origin suppliers bound to our standard.
Selection and hand-grading
Lots selected and hand-graded at source into cleaned lump and HPS, to our specification and under our standard.
Quality control and documentation
QC at source with a COA and full records accompanying every lot.
Export logistics
Export-ready packing, documentation and delivery schedules you can build a production plan on.
Market and crop knowledge
Crop outlook, regional grades and market timing, judged from inside the sector.
Buyer partnership
Annual contracts and repeat seasons with international manufacturers and distributors — supply planned against a yearly requirement.
Sustainability & community
The people who keep the forests standing.
The acacia gum sector sustains millions of vulnerable families across Sub-Saharan Africa's gum belt. They harvest from natural forests on their ancestral lands. That income holds communities together, holds back the desert, and holds up biodiversity.
Livelihood income
Gum harvest is essential seasonal income for families across the Sahel, often the difference that keeps children in school and households secure.
A wall against the desert
Living acacia forests anchor the soil, fix nitrogen, and slow the Sahara's southward advance. Harvesting gum keeps the trees worth more standing than felled.
Diet, immunity, tradition
For generations, acacia gum has been part of these communities' diet and traditional practices — a use that predates every modern application.
Our commitment
Fair value, back to the harvester.
We work to ensure fair value reaches the people who tap the trees, through transparent origin partnerships, CSR activities in harvesting communities, and collaborations with NGOs working across the belt.
- Transparent pricing relationships with origin suppliers and harvester associations
- CSR programs focused on water, health and education in gum-belt villages
- Partnerships with NGOs active in Sahel reforestation and rural livelihoods
- Support for organic certification that raises farm-gate value
Meet us
Start with a conversation.
From crop outlook to grade selection, your questions go straight to the people whose judgment selects the lots.