Sourcing & traceability
From the first weighing to your dock.
The record starts at the collection-market scale and follows every bag to your dock. This is the chain — and we own every link.
Photographed in the Sudanese gum belt
Where we source
Sudan's gum belt, region by region.
The belt runs coast to coast across the Sahel between roughly 10° and 14° N. Tap a region.
≈49% of Sudan’s output · Hashab
Kordofan
El-Obeid hosts the world’s largest gum arabic market, and hashab (A. senegal) gardens dominate the region.
Sourcing across Kordofan, Kassala & Gedaref, Darfur and the Blue Nile does more than match species and grade. A crop year is never identical across the belt, and buying across several producing regions is how we keep supply steady when a single area has a difficult season.
Stylized map for orientation, not a political boundary document.
Regional shares reflect Sudan's national production. Sudan produces roughly 70% of the world's gum arabic; the belt also extends into Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali.
The chain
Four steps, fully controlled.
Harvest & collection
Harvesters cut tapping slits after the autumn, around October to November, as Acacia senegal begins to shed its leaves. Gum exudes as nodules and hardens in the sun. The first pick comes about four to six weeks later, followed by several more collections every couple of weeks through the dry season. Acacia seyal often exudes gum naturally with little or no tapping. Sudan's long dry season does the work: with near-zero rainfall and low humidity for much of the year, the gum sun-hardens on the branch and dries to naturally low moisture, which helps preserve clean, high-grade lump and HPS.
Cleaning, sorting & grading
Lots are cleaned of bark and sand, hand-sorted to our standard into cleaned lump and HPS, then graded and, where required, kibbled or milled to specification.
Quality assurance at origin
Sampling and testing against your spec: physico-chemical, microbiological, particle size. No lot ships unverified.
Worldwide delivery
We ship FOB Port Sudan (Incoterms 2020) as standard, with CIF and other terms by arrangement, and export documentation that clears customs without surprises.
Traceability
Every lot carries its own paper trail.
Traceability here isn't a program layered on top of the supply chain — the journey produces its own record. Every batch is bought at a named collection market and weighed on an electronic scale, and every movement after that requires an official permit, checked en route and again at port. Each document is created at the time, by a party other than the seller. We hold the complete file, and it must reconcile before anything ships.
The first weighing
Every batch is bought at a named collection market and weighed on an electronic scale. The weight certificate records quantity and location — the start of the file.
Permits per leg
Each movement — market to cleaning facility, facility to Port Sudan — carries its own official transport permit covering Zakat, forestry tax and business profit tax, verified at checkpoints en route.
Verified at port
We source only material that has moved through official domestic channels to Port Sudan, with the permit chain intact for every leg. The chain is checked again before customs clearance.
Reconciled before shipment
Processing records tie input weights to output; manifests and packing lists tie output to containers. The file must tie out at every stage.
The weight trail
Scale certificate → processing records reconciling input to output → manifests → packing lists.
The payment trail
Contract, counterparty, bank transfer to a named account as standard practice; duties and transport receipted per leg.
The two trails must reconcile at every stage. A discrepancy in either stops the lot.
Segregation is physical.
- Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal are stored in entirely separate warehouses.
- Within a species, batches from different producing areas are held separately — mud-soil and sand-soil gums differ chemically, and buyers specify accordingly. They are never mixed.
- Where one shipment carries more than one area, containers are identified by area.
Every container traces to the specific batches inside it, and every batch to the market where it was bought. Records are retained not less than five years and are available to customers on request.
What ships with every consignment.
- Bill of lading set
- Commercial invoice
- Packing list
- Certificate of origin
- Certificate of analysis
On request: a lot-level traceability statement, with the supporting records behind it.
The standards our suppliers are bound to.
Responsible Sourcing & Traceability PolicySupplier Code of ConductFrom Sudan to the world
Nothing changes hands in between.
Tapped, graded, documented, shipped — one standard at every step.
Hand-tapped, never felled
Wild acacia gives up its gum and keeps growing, season after season.
Graded before it ships
Cleaned, hand-graded and tested before anything leaves the gum belt.
Fair value at the farm gate
Long-term partnerships with the families who tap the trees.
Delivered globally
Export papers, packing and shipping your planners can rely on.
Quality assurance at origin
Verified before it ever leaves the belt.
Quality is decided at origin, where a lot can still be rejected before it ships. Every lot is graded, tested and documented, so what reaches your line is exactly what you specified.
Hand grading
Lump graded by eye and hand at origin, under our specification: the craft judgment that defines premium quality, applied to every lot.
Physico-chemical testing
Moisture, ash, pH, viscosity, optical rotation. Every lot is profiled against your specification.
Microbiological control
Total plate count, yeasts & molds, E. coli, Salmonella, verified before any lot is released.
Particle-size verification
Mesh and granulation checked against the agreed spec for kibbled and milled grades.
Lot-level traceability
Origin records from collection market to container, auditable on request.
COA with every lot
A full certificate of analysis travels with every shipment: identity, purity, microbiology.
Supply continuity
Supply you can plan around.
Gum acacia is a niche material with a narrow origin base, and the manufacturers who build a formulation around it need more than a good first shipment. They need to know the same material will be there next season, and the season after.
Alley Pond was formed in New York, but not from a standing start. It grew out of working relationships at origin that go back decades — with the people who have been supplying gum acacia to international processors year after year. That history is the reason supply can be planned against your annual requirement rather than sold lot by lot.
We source across several producing regions of the belt, we hold relationships directly with the people who tap and grade the crop, and we commit to a season, not a shipment. If your line depends on this ingredient, that continuity is the point.
Global reach
We ship worldwide.
From Port Sudan we deliver to North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, on terms that work for your business. One contact, from contract to delivery.
We ship FOB Port Sudan (Incoterms 2020) as standard, with CIF and other terms by arrangement. Loading at Port Sudan, we're familiar with the major discharge ports our buyers use across North America, Europe and Asia.
- Food-grade big bags (500–1,000 kg), 25/50 kg PP bags or 25–50 kg kraft bags
- Palletized & shrink-wrapped on request
- Samples shipped by air courier ahead of contract
- One reply with a firm offer, usually within one business day
How sampling works
- Send your target spec.
- We ship evaluation samples by air courier ahead of contract.
- You approve against your line.
- We confirm a firm offer, usually within one business day.
Origin to export.
Global reach
Wherever you manufacture, we deliver.
Tell us your destination and volume. We'll come back with a firm offer, usually within one business day.