• Some Ghana-made chocolates on display at the Chocolate Week launch in Accra Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa in the world but cannot be found in the league of 50 top cocoa consuming countries.
The country consumes about 0.53 kilograms (KG) of cocoa-sourced products every year and that is a drop in the ocean when compared to countries such as Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Ireland and Great Britain where an average of eight KG of the products are consumed every year.
When it comes to the ‘golden pod,’ the country produces what it hardly eats and that is a blow, given the nutritional and health benefits of cocoa.
From the enviable ‘Ghana chocolate’ through cocoa powder beverages to body lotions made from cocoa and its by-products, not many people in the country are excited about products made from cocoa.
As a result, majority of the beans are shipped in their raw state to factories abroad, with a handful processed in local factories into finished and semi-finished products, a chunk of which also ends up overseas.
Causes
The country’s low consumption of cocoa is the consequence of culture, orientation and the income levels of the citizens.
Unlike the western world where breakfasts and snacks are mostly beverages, heavy meals pass for morning and intervening foods and where they are unavailable or not preferred, local delicacies such as porridge or those sourced from cereals become the go-to options.
Among the growing middle class and foreign community where light foods are preferred for breakfasts and snacks, cocoa is hardly on the menu. Cocoa drinks are least preferred and worst of all, hardly available. No wonder then that there are no ‘cocoa breaks’ but rather ‘coffee breaks’ at workshops and conferences. Toffees rather than chocolates are shared at these events.
Ironically, coffee shops are dotted across the sprawling Accra, when it could have easily passed for the cocoa capital of the world, with strategically placed ‘cocoa shops’ to give it the distinctively rich velvety aroma from Ghana’s exceptional premium quality cocoa beans.
When it comes to chocolate and other cocoa-sourced candies also, they are viewed more like symbols of luxury.That is true to some extent. A 100-gram bar of locally produced chocolate retails for more than six cedis in a country where the daily minimum wage is barely GH¢12.This has made chocolate an occasional product although the recent attempt to symbolise it with love and care seemed to […]