Cocoa Week celebration: Chocolate is a luxury product – Cocoa Value Chain Analyst

The 2022 National Cocoa Week celebration has been launched at Mampong in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

The event, which will be held on the theme: “Eat Chocolate, Stay Healthy, Grow Ghana”, with the sub-theme: “Our Chocolate, Our Health, Our Wealth", will be a week-long celebration, starting from February 12 to 22, 2022.

It is aimed at promoting domestic consumption of locally made chocolate and other cocoa products, as it highlights the nutritional and health benefits of consuming cocoa products and the economic and wealth creation potential of the cocoa value chain.

The programme is the initiative of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), in collaboration with the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) and the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC).

As part of the event, there will also be a cocoa health walk, a float, a donation, a durbar and exhibition, a movie premiere, among others.

Ghana is the second world’s largest producer of Cocoa and according to the Ghana Cocoa Board, Ghana produced about 1 million tons of cocoa during the 2020/2021 crop season. Despite the relative improvement in Ghana's quest to become a cocoa consumption nation, its current per capita cocoa consumption, which hovers around 0.55 kilogramme, is still nowhere near what exist in Europe and America, main consumers of Ghana’s cocoa beans.

Cocoa Value Chain Analyst, Mr. Eliseus Opoku-Boamah says it’s time to intensify the promotion of Cocoa from Ghana and to increase and sustain the consumption of cocoa products in Ghana by addressing cultural orientation, habits, tastes, developing food recipes that contain cocoa products in our meals and demystify the idea that chocolate and cocoa product is a luxury product.

He said Chocolate and cocoa products must be made affordable for the ordinary Ghanaian citizen with low-income level.

“Initiatives like the National Cocoa Day, Cocoa week celebration and free cocoa drink program under the school feeding program by the government of Ghana for primary students must be intensified and expanded possibly to secondary and tertiary students.

Research has shown that consuming cocoa products with high cocoa content has health benefits which includes ability to lower blood pressure, prevent the risk of cardiovascular diseases, and aids in weight management” he said.

The Cocoa Value Chain Analyst made these observations in an interview with this reporter on Ghana’s cocoa sector and the 2022 Cocoa Week celebration.

Mr. Opoku-Boamah indicated that citizens need more education on the nutritional and health benefits of consuming cocoa products.

“Domestic artisanal processors have not been motivated and incentivized enough to increase local production of cocoa products”.

The value addition and benefits it brings on the economy which includes job creation along the entire cocoa value chain and productivity improvement which will lead to income generation, livelihoods and community development of producers must be enhanced” he added.

When asked, how can we sustain national cocoa consumption in Ghana and change the narrative?

The Cocoa Value Chain Analyst indicated that we must prioritise the consumption of cocoa products at national level and at all state functions to replace the sharing of toffees with cocoa products locally made and institute cocoa breaks instead of coffee breaks.

“Government must help intensify all government and private initiatives on the need to consume cocoa products”. This will bring back the focus, revive the attention and whip up the consumption of cocoa products.

Government must provide special tax packages to local and artisanal processors of cocoa products so as to increase the production and supply of cocoa products.

This may drive the prices of such products down and make it affordable for the ordinary Ghanaian to afford” he added.