GCB Cocoa, a Malaysia-owned cocoa and chocolate ingredients supplier, has opened its first Africa cocoa processing plant in the Ivorian port city of San Pedro, AIP has reported.
The San Pedro factory is expected to allow GCB direct control over bean quality and the possibility to increasingly administer sustainability programmes directly.
While GCB Cocoa Cote d’Ivoire was administratively established in 2018, processing operations are now commencing with an installed cocoa grinding capacity of 60,000 MT.
This first phase of the factory complex will produce semi-finished cocoa products and chocolate ingredients with 314 employees.
By the completion of the fourth phase of the project, GCB Cote d’Ivoire is expected to be processing at 240,000 MT per annum capacity.
The deputy general manager of the GCB Cocoa Group, Assémian Marcel, said the Group is investing a total of 46 billion FCFA (around $78M) for the construction of the various phases of the project.
The company is expecting the Ivorian processing facility to draw on the Group’s expertise in the cocoa manufacturing sector to develop and expand the capabilities in Cote d’Ivoire to support its European markets.
GCB Cocoa already has footprints in its home continent of Asia, North America and Europe, with Africa being the latest addition.
As Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s largest cocoa-producing country, the facility will allow the Group to be closer to its farmers than it has ever before, GCB posted on its website.
The company believes this will enable them to kickstart the implementation of their own sustainability programme to source cocoa beans directly from farmers and improve the livelihoods of farmers.
The new cocoa processing factory was officially inaugurated by Tiémoko Meyliet Koné, the Vice President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire.
“This magnificent industrial unit is part of the perfect vision of the President of the Republic, his Excellency Alassane Ouattara, to accelerate the industrialisation policy of our country through, in particular, an increased transformation of our agricultural products in order to generate massive and stable jobs for our youth,” said Vice President Koné.
Côte d’Ivoire has set itself the goal of processing at least 50% of its production, estimated at more than two million tonnes of cocoa beans annually.
The grinding plants installed in the country process a combined total of 972,040 metric tonnes.
This new processing unit by GCB Cocoa Cote d’Ivoire brings the number of these grinding plants to 14.