Cocoa Processing Plant Launched
By CHRISTOPHER JATOR, Cameroon Tribune, 13-04-2014
The
market for chocolates and other food products based on cocoa powder,
such as chocolate flavored drinks, desserts and sweets, is growing.
Availability of raw material and good market prospects make investment
in a cocoa bean processing unit a profitable venture. It is in this line
that nationals are becoming interested in investing in the processing
of cocoa.
Another
cocoa processing plant, beside SIC Cacaos, was launched in Douala over
the week-end. The Minister of Industries, Mine and Technological
Development, Emmanuel Bonde, in the presence of the Secretary of State
at the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Yaouba
Abdoulaye, launched the new Cocoa Processing Unit at its site in
Bonaberi on Saturday, April 12. Minister Bonde noted that cocoa in the
raw form is not consumable and in the economic sense it has no value. In
order to make cocoa consumable and valuable it has to undergo different
stages of processing.
The
Promoter of the Cocoa Processing Unit, Noha Mesaca, said the structure
will produce 6,904 tons of labelled products, process 16,000 tons of
cocoa beans per year into three main components: cocoa liquor (6,400
tons), cocoa butter (3,000 tons) and cocoa powder (3,300 tons). These
components can be sold to confectionery and sweet makers to make
chocolate, cosmetic products such as moisturising creams and soaps, or
chocolate spreads and sauces, cakes, biscuits, and chocolate flavoured
drinks and desserts such as ice cream and mousse.
The
vision is to enter the second generation agriculture phase that
government has in place. Since the creation of government’s “Agropole
Programme” in October 2012, 16 projects at the cost of FCFA 9.874
billion have gone operational. These include the production of 2,928,000
chicken, 34,800 pigs, 1,800 tons of fish, 251,250,000 table eggs, 3,500
tons of paddy rice, 17,099 tons of corn, 8,000 tons of soja and 26,000
tons of pineapple. The Cocoa Processing Plant is just another effort
within the framework of the programme to boost satisfy local food
demands.
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