About Alley Pond
Rooted in the Sudanese gum belt
A supplier of raw gum arabic and baobab — direct from where it's grown, tapped, and hand-sorted.
Alley Pond supplies raw gum arabic and baobab from the heart of Sudan's acacia forests, the woodlands where the finest gum is still gathered and hand-sorted. Our team brings together over three decades of combined hands-on experience across the gum belt, from harvest and grading to international export. That closeness to the source is our advantage: we supply the raw material the world's flavor, food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics makers build on — direct from origin.
Our story
Built on relationships, reputation and deep knowledge.
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. Gum arabic is not a commodity you learn from a desk: grading tears by hand, judging a crop season, knowing which forest belt yields which quality. This knowledge passes 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.
Alley Pond is a supplier in the fullest sense: we handle selection, grading, quality control, documentation and export ourselves, so the same people who judge the crop at origin are the ones who answer your questions in New York.
A fully integrated organization
Every link in the chain, under one roof.
Six capabilities working as one.
Origin sourcing
Direct access to gum arabic sources at origin: first-hand, season after season.
Selection and hand-grading
Lots selected and graded by eye and hand at source, into cleaned lump and HPS.
Quality control and documentation
Robust 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
Long-standing relationships with international manufacturers and distributors.
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 heritage that predates every modern application.
Our commitment
Fair value, back to the harvester.
Ethical sourcing is not a label for us — it is how the supply chain stays alive. 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
Talk to people who know the craft.
From crop outlook to grade selection, a conversation with Alley Pond is a conversation with the source.