The humble cocoa bean, the foundational ingredient for our beloved chocolate, is currently making headlines for reasons far less sweet than its taste: unprecedented price volatility. As consumers and industries alike grapple with climbing chocolate prices, understanding the intricate global market has never been more crucial. Offering a nuanced perspective on the sector's current turbulence is Olasunkanmi Owoyemi, Managing Director of Sunbeth Global Concepts, a company dedicated to agricultural development and trade, particularly in cocoa. Owoyemi, who was a distinguished invitee at the Qatar Economic Forum last month, shared these insights with us during his recent visit to Doha.
In this interview, Mr. Owoyemi explains that the fundamental challenges facing cocoa production are less about climate change and more about deep-seated issues like historical underinvestment and outdated practices. Yet, even amidst these significant hurdles, he points to considerable opportunities for revitalization and transformation, particularly within key producing regions, suggesting a path forward for the industry to evolve and stabilize.
Global Cocoa Market Overview
Q: What are some of the major events – from weather problems to changing consumer tastes – that are shaking up the cocoa market right now?
A: The cocoa market is currently experiencing significant volatility, primarily due to a severe supply shortage driven by a "perfect storm" of challenges. Immediate factors include extreme weather in West Africa – past floods fostering diseases like Black Pod, followed by droughts and heatwaves – which severely impacted recent harvests. While improved rains in early 2025 have offered some hope for future crops and seen prices fall significantly from their recent record highs, the market remains fundamentally fragile. This is compounded by deeply rooted issues like chronic underinvestment in farms, limited access to modern techniques for aging farmers, and land loss from activities like illegal mining. Despite recent price corrections, the market grapples with a persistent physical supply deficit, alongside a recent weakening of demand due to high chocolate prices, creating complex instability across the global industry.
Q: The price of chocolate often makes headlines. What's going on with the global buying and selling of cocoa beans that affects these prices?
A: The global price of cocoa, and therefore chocolate, is soaring due to a severe supply deficit, primarily from West Africa which produces over 70% of the world's cocoa. This shortage is driven by production deficit from farms due to farmers struggle to procure important inputs for ensuring optimum production. Compounding this, many cocoa trees are aging and susceptible to diseases like the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus, while farmers struggle with low incomes, lack essential inputs, and face competition for land from illegal mining. Furthermore, younger generations are increasingly disinterested in the demanding and often unrewarding work of cocoa farming. These factors have drastically reduced cocoa output, while global demand remains robust, pushing prices to record highs and leading to smaller chocolate bars and higher costs for consumers.
Q: Which countries are the big players in this trade, both as sellers and buyers?
A: As sellers, West African countries dominate. Côte d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer, followed closely by Ghana. Other significant African producers include Nigeria and Cameroon. Outside Africa, Ecuador is a major player, especially for high-quality cocoa, and Indonesia is a key Asian producer. On the buying side, developed economies in Europe and North America lead. The European Union is the largest importer, with countries like the Netherlands (a major processing hub), Germany, and the United States being top individual buyers. Other important importers and processors include Malaysia and, increasingly, countries in Asia like Japan and China, as global demand for chocolate continues to grow.
In this interview, Mr. Owoyemi explains that the fundamental challenges facing cocoa production are less about climate change and more about deep-seated issues like historical underinvestment and outdated practices. Yet, even amidst these significant hurdles, he points to considerable opportunities for revitalization and transformation, particularly within key producing regions, suggesting a path forward for the industry to evolve and stabilize.
Global Cocoa Market Overview
Q: What are some of the major events – from weather problems to changing consumer tastes – that are shaking up the cocoa market right now?
A: The cocoa market is currently experiencing significant volatility, primarily due to a severe supply shortage driven by a "perfect storm" of challenges. Immediate factors include extreme weather in West Africa – past floods fostering diseases like Black Pod, followed by droughts and heatwaves – which severely impacted recent harvests. While improved rains in early 2025 have offered some hope for future crops and seen prices fall significantly from their recent record highs, the market remains fundamentally fragile. This is compounded by deeply rooted issues like chronic underinvestment in farms, limited access to modern techniques for aging farmers, and land loss from activities like illegal mining. Despite recent price corrections, the market grapples with a persistent physical supply deficit, alongside a recent weakening of demand due to high chocolate prices, creating complex instability across the global industry.
Q: The price of chocolate often makes headlines. What's going on with the global buying and selling of cocoa beans that affects these prices?
A: The global price of cocoa, and therefore chocolate, is soaring due to a severe supply deficit, primarily from West Africa which produces over 70% of the world's cocoa. This shortage is driven by production deficit from farms due to farmers struggle to procure important inputs for ensuring optimum production. Compounding this, many cocoa trees are aging and susceptible to diseases like the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus, while farmers struggle with low incomes, lack essential inputs, and face competition for land from illegal mining. Furthermore, younger generations are increasingly disinterested in the demanding and often unrewarding work of cocoa farming. These factors have drastically reduced cocoa output, while global demand remains robust, pushing prices to record highs and leading to smaller chocolate bars and higher costs for consumers.
Q: Which countries are the big players in this trade, both as sellers and buyers?
A: As sellers, West African countries dominate. Côte d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer, followed closely by Ghana. Other significant African producers include Nigeria and Cameroon. Outside Africa, Ecuador is a major player, especially for high-quality cocoa, and Indonesia is a key Asian producer. On the buying side, developed economies in Europe and North America lead. The European Union is the largest importer, with countries like the Netherlands (a major processing hub), Germany, and the United States being top individual buyers. Other important importers and processors include Malaysia and, increasingly, countries in Asia like Japan and China, as global demand for chocolate continues to grow.
Lead Cocoa Bean Exporters and Importers (as of recent data, typically 2023-2024) Lead Exporters (Producing Countries):
Cocoa Bean Importers (Consuming/Processing Countries):
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Nigeria's Cocoa Sector: Current State and Opportunities
Q: What is Nigeria's current standing in the global market?
A: Nigeria, once a top-three global cocoa producer in the 1960s and 70s, significantly fell in ranking due to a national shift in focus from agriculture to crude oil, leading to a long period of underinvestment and neglect of the sector. Currently, Nigeria ranks behind major African players like Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, and also behind countries such as Indonesia and Ecuador. Fortunately , the industry is now on a strategic recovery path. The Nigerian government is actively prioritizing the sector's revival and aiming for substantial growth and increased global relevance through renewed investments and policy support, including efforts to boost value addition through processing.
Q: Nigeria's cocoa sector holds vast potential for transforming raw beans into higher-value products. What's standing in the way of unlocking this opportunity for more jobs and economic gains within the country?
A: Nigeria possesses significant opportunities to unlock immense value by transforming its raw cocoa beans into processed products like cocoa butter, powder, or even finished chocolate. This moves up the value chain – from simple bean production to complex manufacturing – could create thousands of jobs, boost national revenue, and diversify the economy. Currently, the primary hurdle is insufficient access to capital for local businesses throughout this chain, particularly for those looking to invest in or expand processing facilities and effectively procure raw materials. Overcoming this requires strategic investment not only in developing modern processing infrastructure but also in robust financial mechanisms that empower Nigerian players to participate more fully in every stage of the cocoa value chain, securing greater returns within the country.
Government and Investment Environment
Q: How is Nigeria's government actively cultivating a more fertile ground for cocoa investment?
A: Nigeria's government is actively cultivating a more attractive environment for cocoa investment through significant policy changes and a strong push for technological modernization. A major step is the recent approval for establishing a National Cocoa Management Board (NCMB), aiming to regulate the industry, improve quality, facilitate access to credit for farmers, and crucially, drive domestic value addition and processing. This signals a strategic shift to move beyond raw bean exports and capture higher profits. Alongside this, there's a strong emphasis on integrating innovative technologies to boost output, from adopting high-yielding, disease-resistant seedlings and efficient agro-chemical application to digital traceability for quality control and labor-saving farm tools, all designed to make the sector more productive and appealing to both existing farmers and new investors.
Q: What makes Nigeria's cocoa sector an attractive investment opportunity?
A: Nigeria's cocoa sector, despite past underinvestment, now offers a highly attractive investment opportunity, especially given the global supply deficit and rising cocoa prices. Investing at this juncture allows for significant returns as the market climbs. Key areas for investment include enhancing farming productivity through better inputs, improved seedlings, and a trained workforce. Crucially, there's immense potential in local processing, establishing factories to produce cocoa liquor, butter, and powder. This not only boosts profit margins by moving up the value chain but also aligns with national economic diversification goals, creating jobs and fostering rural development with growing government support for the sector.
Q: With Qatar increasingly diversifying its global investments and deepening ties across Africa, what makes Nigeria's cocoa sector a particularly strategic and appealing opportunity for Qatari investors, especially those focused on sustainable, impactful, and long-term ventures?
A: Nigeria's cocoa sector offers a compelling opportunity for Qatari investors, directly aligning with Qatar's strategic drive for diversified and sustainable global growth, a theme often highlighted at forums like the Qatar Economic Forum. While Nigeria traditionally exports raw cocoa, there's immense, largely untapped potential in local processing—transforming beans into higher-value products like cocoa butter or powder. Unlocking this significant value chain requires strategic capital and expertise. For Qatar, such investments promise not only strong long-term returns but also the fulfillment of their vision for impactful and sustainable ventures that mutually benefit both nations through economic development and job creation.
Risks and Sustainability
Q: Nigeria's cocoa sector offers promise, but what are the key investment risks, and how is Sunbeth Global Concepts building resilience against them?
A: Investing in Nigeria's cocoa sector involves navigating several key risks. The foremost is supply inconsistency, as a steady flow of quality beans is vital for processing plants, infrastructure deficits like poor roads also inflate costs, while inherent price volatility in the global market creates planning challenges. Additionally, political and regulatory instability can affect operations. Sunbeth Global Concepts mitigates these by fostering strong, direct relationships with farmers and buying agents to ensure consistent sourcing, implementing farmer training on - modern production practices, strategically managing logistics to counter infrastructure issues, focusing on value-added processing to buffer price swings, and engaging with the new National Cocoa Management Board to stay abreast of policy.
Q: At the heart of cocoa production is the farmer and their community. In Nigeria, what are governments and private companies doing to directly support them, ensuring their well-being and a truly sustainable, viable future for cocoa?
A: Ensuring the well-being of Nigerian cocoa farmers and communities is crucial for the industry's future. The government, through initiatives like the new National Cocoa Management Board (NCMB), is committed to stabilizing incomes, improving market access, and providing vital support. These efforts are designed to enhance farmer welfare and strengthen their connection to the land, making farming viable for younger generations and preserving agricultural heritage. Simultaneously, private companies recognize their role in this sustainability. For instance, Sunbeth Global Concepts invests beyond trade, directly in communities by renovating schools and constructing boreholes. They also empower families through educational support for children and programs for women. This collaborative approach by both public and private sectors fosters resilient communities, securing a stable cocoa supply, and ultimately benefits both Nigeria's economy and its valuable farming traditions.
A: Investing in Nigeria's cocoa sector involves navigating several key risks. The foremost is supply inconsistency, as a steady flow of quality beans is vital for processing plants, infrastructure deficits like poor roads also inflate costs, while inherent price volatility in the global market creates planning challenges. Additionally, political and regulatory instability can affect operations. Sunbeth Global Concepts mitigates these by fostering strong, direct relationships with farmers and buying agents to ensure consistent sourcing, implementing farmer training on - modern production practices, strategically managing logistics to counter infrastructure issues, focusing on value-added processing to buffer price swings, and engaging with the new National Cocoa Management Board to stay abreast of policy.
Q: At the heart of cocoa production is the farmer and their community. In Nigeria, what are governments and private companies doing to directly support them, ensuring their well-being and a truly sustainable, viable future for cocoa?
A: Ensuring the well-being of Nigerian cocoa farmers and communities is crucial for the industry's future. The government, through initiatives like the new National Cocoa Management Board (NCMB), is committed to stabilizing incomes, improving market access, and providing vital support. These efforts are designed to enhance farmer welfare and strengthen their connection to the land, making farming viable for younger generations and preserving agricultural heritage. Simultaneously, private companies recognize their role in this sustainability. For instance, Sunbeth Global Concepts invests beyond trade, directly in communities by renovating schools and constructing boreholes. They also empower families through educational support for children and programs for women. This collaborative approach by both public and private sectors fosters resilient communities, securing a stable cocoa supply, and ultimately benefits both Nigeria's economy and its valuable farming traditions.
Company Vision
Q: Finally, what is Sunbeth Global Concepts' overarching vision for the future of the cocoa sector in Nigeria and Africa? What specific role does the company see itself playing in unlocking this strategic investment and driving sustainable and impactful agricultural transformation? What are some of your key priorities for the next 3-5 years?
A: At Sunbeth, we aim to empower our local partners at the origin, including the licensed buying agents, farmers, and exporters, with the financing structure, education, market access, and technology needed to improve their outputs. This, we believe, is a great way to contribute to global food security. We envision a future where every farmer has access to the financing they need to own land and also to have inputs that'll enable them to increase their outputs. Ultimately, our priority for the next 3 to 5 years is to build our processing plants and develop a culture to de-risk the agricultural value chain, particularly for the smallholder farmers.
A: At Sunbeth, we aim to empower our local partners at the origin, including the licensed buying agents, farmers, and exporters, with the financing structure, education, market access, and technology needed to improve their outputs. This, we believe, is a great way to contribute to global food security. We envision a future where every farmer has access to the financing they need to own land and also to have inputs that'll enable them to increase their outputs. Ultimately, our priority for the next 3 to 5 years is to build our processing plants and develop a culture to de-risk the agricultural value chain, particularly for the smallholder farmers.