• Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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BusinessDay

Growing Nigeria’s chocolate for global market

Cocoa

Despite the fact that Africa produces about 75 percent of global cocoa beans, less than five percent of the wealth from the value chain is retained in the continent.

Cocoa is the major input for the production of chocolates and top global chocolate makers source their beans from Africa, with Nigeria among the top producers of the commodity.

According to a report by the International Cocoa Association (ICCO), the total value of exporting raw cocoa commodity from Africa is estimated at about $10 billion a year while total value from global chocolate production is put at over a $100 billion.

As a result, Nigeria’s chocolate industry is striving to tap from this global opportunity by having its own fair share in the ever-growing market.

Craft chocolate makers such as Loshes Chocolates, Kalabari Gecko chocolates and Loom Chocolate, among others, are striving to increase local production as well as consumption in the country.

On this note, the Eti-Oni development group organised the Eko Chocolate show in Lagos recently to promote Nigeria’s chocolate manufacturers and drive local consumption culture.

The ball room of the Lagos Oriental Hotel which was the venue of the show was filled to the brim as actors across the cocoa value chain, chocolate lovers within and outside the country gathered to showcase and exhibit as well as see what the country can produce as regards chocolate.

With the theme ‘The making of the Nigerian chocolate’ Oba Dokun Thompson, the Oloni of Eti-Oni and the chairman of Eti-Oni Development Group, said that the show was borne out of the need to put the value back into cocoa production and showcase different ideas and possibilities by chocolate enthusiasts, cocoa entrepreneurs and consumers who have through their interest and innovation created the Nigerian chocolate.

“The show created opportunities for chocolate makers, chocolatiers and chefs, as well as equipment and accessory manufacturers, restaurants, dessert and pastry chefs, ingredients suppliers, cosmetics experts, branding and packaging companies among others who use cocoa as the main ingredient or part of their finished products to exhibit their products,” Thompson.

He stated that the chocolate show was a continuation of the journey in making the Nigerian chocolate become a world class phenomenon, stressing that the beauty of Nigeria is captured in her diversity in art, culture, traditions and languages across the incredible landscape of lowlands and highlands, the plateau or the valleys and the plain fields or rain forest.

He hinted that cocoa with varied exquisite flavours are produced between the southwest and the southeast or south-south and parts of the middle belt which can create exquisite and premium chocolate products for great tasting and eating experience for all.

According to him, one of the most fascinating aspects of Nigeria is the vibrancy, brightness and colours of the several traditional attires of her over 500 ethnic groups.

“The Nigeria chocolate can thus be described as chocolate that is cheerfully made with love from single origin beans of high quality, rich in diverse fine flavours and can be found from the different cocoa producing regions in the country infused with the Nigeria spirit of resilience, achievement and purpose with diversity in the art and culture with a beautiful blend of an array of spices that captures the very essence of our being.”

Oba Thompson further stated that Lagos being a mega city and one of the most populated cities in the world is well positioned to be the main consumer market and trading centre for chocolate in Africa. He added that the show would take advantage of the fast development of the Lagos economy and culture and be an annual international and professional platform showcasing chocolate products and its culture which will bridge the innovative and efficient communications between exhibitors and purchasers to build the idea and opportunity to create wealth.

He added that the chocolate show would further help to deepen the chocolate culture and showcase what is on offer at home and abroad to a wide and diverse audience who want to keep abreast of what is going on in the chocolate and culinary space around the world.

“This maiden edition is not only strategic but historic. People around the world are familiar with Belgian, Swiss, Dutch or Modica chocolates even though these countries do not produce cocoa which is the main component of chocolate unlike the confectionary people who are used to which has minimum cocoa quality with lots of unhealthy additives, chocolate compounds, animal fat, sugar and others,” he said.

The identities of those chocolates are reflective of the processes employed and the region or country they were made.

Some of the Nigerian chocolate manufacturers that exhibited at the show identified high cost of production, dearth of skilled labour, government regulations, high cost of raw materials, among others, as major challenges limiting the growth of the Nigerian chocolate industry.

They however called on government to invest heavily on research and development and also empower research institutes and technological institutions to build equipment for the industry rather than importing them, which is really eating deep into their profit.

Oyedipe, founder of Loshes Chocolate, said that their major aim was to showcase Nigeria as a chocolate country, adding that there were many opportunities across the value chain which Nigerians need to tap into to develop the industry.

Similarly, Princess Odiakosa, founder, Kalabari Gecko chocolates, said that institutions like the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) should be encouraged to build machines that manufacturers can use for production.

“We as a country should start producing things like chocolate where we will see foreigners come to Nigeria supermarket and be confused with what to buy because of the good things that are made here in Nigeria,” Odiakosa said.

Uzoama Kalzukanne, founder of Loom Chocolate, said that getting skilled labour was not an easy thing, stressing that the nation’s educational system is really poor.

Kalzukanne said that there was need to have a reorientation and a change of mind-set about promoting foreign things above our local production.

For the sector to create more jobs, players called on the Federal Government to incentivise local investors and private sector participation by providing single-digit interest rates to encourage investments and activities in the cocoa sector as well as chocolate manufacturing.

“Unless there is a well-defined policy for cocoa production and processing, the country would continue to export its jobs and lose revenue it would have generated through value addition,” Akin Olusuyi, managing director, Ile Oluji Nigeria Limited, said.

 

Josephine Okojie