Cocoa operators have urged the Federal Government to boost the sector by mandating local consumption, including chocolate, in the country.

These operators are not making the call for the first time. Back in 2019, The PUNCH reported a call from the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria to the Federal Government to include cocoa tea in the Home Grown School Feeding Programme across the country.

In separate interviews with Sunday PUNCH, operators including the leaders of CFAN and the Cocoa Association of Nigeria, observed that low consumption is crippling the sector’s growth due to local culture and widespread ignorance of cocoa health benefits. They maintained that a government mandate can help build a cocoa-consuming culture in Nigeria.

CAN President Mufutau Abolarinwa said, “Chocolate is not widely consumed locally. And we ask, what can the government do to create a chocolate market? It’s simple. The government should make it mandatory to give chocolate to children of school age, in primary and secondary schools.”

Abolarinwa argued that to have a thriving processed cocoa product value chain in Nigeria, stakeholders will have to create a market for products, including chocolate. “The government has to catch them when they are young. We are not talking about our generation, but the generation that is coming. They should be encouraged,” he said, emphasising a long-term consumption plan.

Nigeria consumes cocoa products, evident in its cocoa powder importation. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that in the fourth quarter of 2024, Nigeria imported N4.62bn worth of cocoa powder, containing added sugar or other sweetening matter, from countries in the Economic Community of West African States. The commodity also made Nigeria’s top 10 import products from ECOWAS countries in Q1 2025.

Yet, stakeholders identify that the growth of cocoa, Nigeria’s top agricultural export, with an export value of N1.32tn (all forms of the commodity), is stunted by a low consumption drive.

For CFAN President Adeola Adegoke, Nigeria is starting at a disadvantage compared to the global markets. He said, “In terms of chocolate, we can’t compete. I’ve always said that Nigeria’s competitive advantage is in cocoa production and processing.”

Adegoke lamented that Nigeria faces numerous standardisation challenges in making cocoa consumables. “You can’t compete where you cannot – permit me to use that word – consume what you are producing,” he explained. “If you are producing chocolate and the market of consumption is not in Africa or Nigeria, why do you engage in it? What you have a competitive advantage in is production.”

Recent data from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation places Nigeria as the world’s seventh biggest cocoa bean producer, producing more than 280,000 tonnes in 2023. A 2025 Vestance research publication stated that Nigeria, “ranks sixth in global cocoa production, far behind West African neighbours – Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana – Indonesia, Ecuador and Brazil, accounting for only six per cent of the global production.”

The country’s stats are lower on processing. According to a 2023 International Cocoa Organisation’s Feasibility Study On Africa Cocoa Exchange Appendix III: Nigeria Country Report publication, grinding companies, which are intermediate processors, produce two critical cocoa derivatives from the measured average of 233,000 metric tonnes of cocoa bean, namely cocoa butter (38 per cent); cocoa powder (42 per cent) from cocoa liquor (80 per cent).

The report added that Nigeria’s “20 per cent balance, typically called waste, finds use as animal feed, fertiliser, cosmetics/personal health care, additives for the food and confectionery, as well as for feedstock for biogas production. Five to 10 per cent of the cocoa powder and cocoa butter production is utilised by the beverage, biscuit and ice-cream manufacturing companies, the burgeoning artisanal chocolate producers and a wide array of baking and confectionery outfits.” Notably, the report noted that about 90 to 95 per cent of Nigeria’s cocoa powder and butter production is exported.

While CFAN’s president highlighted the state of the cocoa sector, which has been in decline, CAN President Abolarinwa recommended that the Federal Government drive chocolate consumption by subsidising the food for schoolchildren.

He said, “The government should subsidise it for them. Children in school need to have chocolate as part of their food. The government should support them with it so that once they get used to eating chocolate, it continues into secondary school and the university.”

Abolarinwa explained that chocolate is a healthy food vital to brain development. “It’s not just ordinary food. If it were just ordinary food, then why is it that despite the price of cocoa today, Westerners are still buying cocoa? They know the health benefits of chocolate,” he argued. Abolarinwa and Adegoke affirmed Nigeria’s cocoa consumption potential, as cocoa powder products gain ground in the market.

Abolarinwa hailed the cocoa powder market for its growth in Nigeria. “Our Nigerian factories are producing cocoa powder,” he said. “People are taking cocoa powder all over the country. For example, Cadbury and Nestle are all buying cocoa powder. People are making it locally and selling it.

He projected a more impressive market performance as chocolates come on board, stating, “When you look at the way the powder has gained market share in Nigeria, you imagine what it could look like if chocolate also has the same prominence; the price of Nigeria’s cocoa will go up in the world market.

“It is mostly foreigners buying it and fixing the price for us, and they buy at the price that favours them. But once they know that you also consume it locally, then they will be begging you to get the product from you.”

Adegoke urged more consumption, noting that the value of cocoa powder used in the country is “still very low compared to cocoa butter.” He added, “We can continue to leverage it in terms of making sure to train our children, our youth, our women to be creative, to advocate for consumption.”