Any chocolate product without premium Ghanaian cocoa will have a variant taste from the ideal chocolate of the highest standards accepted worldwide, Deputy CEO of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), Samuel Dentu, has stated.
Mr Dentu believes “there is no chocolate in this world without Ghanaian beans that will taste the way chocolate should taste”.
His conclusion is based on the feedback from the 2023 Salon du Chocolat held in Paris, France.
The yearly trade fair for the international chocolate industry brought together over 500 chocolatiers, pastry chefs, confectioners, cocoa producers, major brands, and food bloggers worldwide from October 28 to November 1 for this year’s event.
GEPA led a team of SMEs and other stakeholders in the cocoa sector to explore partnerships, markets, and opportunities that will earn Ghana upwards of the approximately $2.415 billion yearly revenue, about 3.11% of GDP.
Despite the chocolate substitutes, Mr Dentu underscored Ghana’s unique selling point in the international market.
He called for “ingenuity” in value addition as Ghana pursues the export of high-quality end products.
Mr Dentu believes “Ghana must change the narrative about exporting raw materials” to processed and finished products. The Salon De Chocolat “is one of the flagship programmes where we get investors, consumers, and companies to develop an interest in the products from Ghana”.
He welcomed the increasing number of Ghanaian youth participants and entreated industry players to explore more of such avenues.
He cited a Ghana version of the fair, dubbed The International Cocoa and Chocolate Expo, with the third edition in the offing in Ghana for international participants.
With GEPA’s objective of diversification and value-addition, he said his institution was aggressively pursuing the third level of the cocoa industry worth billions of dollars.
He was confident that the benefits of their efforts would be seen in the next few years.
With all these initiatives, he expressed confidence in surpassing the 2022 revenue targets.
“Within the cocoa value chain sector, we also hope to see some good traction. Everything culminating together, we are hoping that from the non-traditional export point of view, we are hoping to rake in US$ 4.3 million. Last year was US$ 3.6 million,” he stated.
