The first of its kind facility allows the country to process cocoa for the first time in a boost for local farmers and a win for Africa’s manufacturing capacity.
Sierra Leone has opened its first cocoa processing factory in a bid to bring profits from the country’s crucial industry home and improve the lives of thousands of local farmers.
The new factory’s machinery, nestled in the eastern Kenema Village, juddered to life on 23 October in a ceremony attended by President Julius Maada Bio, who said it was a “giant step” for the country and economy.
The factory will be able to process up to 4,000 tonnes of cocoa beans per year – around a quarter of the country’s annual output. This is a great step forward, although it will not put Sierra Leone on a par with the world’s largest cocoa producers, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which have been crushing, roasting and grinding cocoa beans into the unsweetened cocoa mass used to manufacture chocolate for years.
Côte d’Ivoire, which got its first industrial scale chocolate factory in 2015, today produces 2m tonnes of cocoa beans a year, equivalent to more than 40% of the world market, and has plans to increase domestic processing capacity to 1.2m tonnes within two years.
Sierra Leone’s new facility, built by Capitol Foods Limited, will export its semi-finished product to major cocoa produce buyers and chocolatiers in Europe for 20% more than it sold its unprocessed cocoa beans, says factory owner Hamza Hashim, CEO of Capitol Foods Limited.