Made in Ghana!

In February 2026, the Mahama administration announced that the remainder of the 2025/26 crop should be allocated for domestic processing and that, from the 2026/27 crop season, at least 50% of Ghana’s cocoa beans should be processed locally. According to The Ghana Cocoa Board, the policy is intended to revive domestic industry, create jobs, and retain more value in-country instead of exporting most of the economic upside offshore.

Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire together produce nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa, making the region indispensable to the global chocolate trade. According to Ecofin Agency, the Ghanaian Government has targeted a production of 650,000 tonnes of cocoa beans for the 2025/2026 crop season, meaning local processing infrastructure will need to accommodate upwards of 300,000-350,000 tonnes of cocoa beans to meet its 2026 goal of processing 50% of the cocoa harvest domestically, with further pressures mounting if yields go beyond projections.

“We’re actively challenging the long-standing notion that premium chocolate must come from outside Africa, and demonstrating that exceptional chocolate can, and should, be made where cocoa grows”

In response to this goal, the state-linked Cocoa Processing Company in Tema is currently installing throughput capacity of about 64,500 – 65,000 metric tonnes of premium Ghana cocoa beans a year. Along with already established plants, such as Niche Cocoa Industry (90,000+ tonnes), Cargill Ghana (75,000+ tonnes) and combined with numerous others, Ghana does possess the technical infrastructure to fulfil its 50% milestone, but due to Ghana’s high-grade beans historically being allocated for export, these facilities are not used to running anywhere near full capacity. And while Niche Cocoa Industry has expanded to a bean-to-bar model, most others are still limited to producing cocoa derivatives such as liquor and butter. Even cosmetics, soaps and animal feeds are generated from the crop at its origin.

Yet the biggest opening may be for indigenous brands that manufacture finished chocolate in Ghana rather than stopping at liquor, butter, or powder.

One example is ’57 Chocolate, which describes itself as the pioneer bean-to-bar chocolate company in Ghana. Founded by Ghanaian sisters Kimberly and Priscilla Addison, the company makes finished chocolate in small batches using Ghanaian cocoa and explicitly positions itself around value addition at origin rather than exporting raw materials for someone else to process abroad.

“By doing so, we create jobs, build local expertise, and retain more economic value within the country. We also get our organic cocoa beans directly from farmers, ensuring stronger relationships and more transparency in the supply chain,” the sisters said. “Beyond economics, it’s also about perception. We’re actively challenging the long-standing notion that premium chocolate must come from outside Africa, and demonstrating that exceptional chocolate can, and should, be made where cocoa grows.” That matters because the highest margins in chocolate are rarely captured at farmgate; they tend to sit in branding, manufacturing, design and retail.

Kimberly and Priscilla’s desire to create ’57 Chocolate was born out of a simple but striking contradiction. After Kimberly visited a chocolate factory in Switzerland, she learned that much of the chocolate produced there relies on cocoa beans sourced from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. “Seeing African cocoa at the heart of the world’s most celebrated chocolate, yet with little recognition or value returning to its origin, was a defining moment,” the sisters continued, “It sparked a conviction in us that countries like Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which grow the cocoa, should also be globally recognised for producing high-quality chocolate.”

“After spending time abroad and then moving to Ghana in 2014, we saw supermarket shelves filled with imported chocolate, many made with Ghanaian cocoa. That disconnect inspired us to act. We wanted to help shift the narrative by producing high-quality, luxury chocolate at origin, right where the cocoa is grown, while celebrating the richness of African culture, art creativity and craftsmanship.”

The challenges

But there are challenges. According to Citi Newsroom, The Mankrom Cocoa Cooperative Farmers Association reported in late 2024, that over 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) of cocoa plantations in Ghana had been destroyed by illegal mining, while pressure on farmers has fed concern that some cocoa land is being diverted away from agriculture altogether. According to the Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis (CERPA), in late 2025 “Cocoa producers applauded recent government moves to curb illegal mining but insist that enforcement must be intensified.” CERPA highlighted that: “The government has deployed task forces and promised stricter penalties in affected regions,” and that: “Farmers also welcome increases in cocoa producer prices but say those gains are fragile if land and yield losses persist.”

Other challenges include access to financing, high import duties on specialised equipment, costly logistics, and infrastructure constraints like electricity reliability, the sisters at ’57 Chocolate explained.

“Climate also plays a role. Ghana’s heat requires careful temperature control throughout production and distribution. Access to certain ingredients is another hurdle. For example, Ghana does not have a large-scale dairy industry, so key inputs like milk powder must be imported. This increases production costs and adds another layer of complexity to sourcing.

“Shipping, in particular, is a major barrier. We’ve had interest from retailers across the African continent who want to stock our chocolate, yet the logistics can be surprisingly inefficient. In some cases, our products must first be routed through Europe before returning to another African country for delivery. This not only drives up costs but underscores how global trade systems can make intra-African commerce more difficult than it should be.”

The advantages

At the same time, there are powerful advantages. “We are close to the source of our primary ingredient, which allows for freshness. There is also an incredible opportunity to build something meaningful - developing local talent, creating jobs, and contributing to a growing ecosystem of African manufacturing. Perhaps the greatest advantage is authenticity: our chocolate is deeply rooted in place, story, and culture.”

“Perhaps the greatest advantage is authenticity: our chocolate is deeply rooted in place, story, and culture”

There are also adjacent initiatives trying to change the narrative around cocoa’s value chain. ‘Chocolate Has A Name,’ a UK-linked project with ties to Ghana, says it was created to help children in cocoa-farming communities in Ghana learn about and experience chocolate-making themselves, a small but telling intervention in an industry where producing countries often grow cocoa without fully participating in the finished-product economy. Meanwhile, commentary from Cocoa Diaries, written by Kwame Asamoah Kwarteng, has argued consistently that Ghana captures too little value because high-value activities such as product innovation and brand ownership remain concentrated abroad.

So where can existing players flourish? In this climate, the strongest opportunity is not just in buying Ghanaian cocoa more ‘responsibly’, but in making, branding and exporting more chocolate from Ghana itself. If UK chocolate groups are serious about resilience, traceability and ethics, the logical next step is deeper partnership with local manufacturers already doing value addition on the ground. Companies like ’57 Chocolate are not a side story to the cocoa economy anymore, they may be the most future-facing part of it.