Reuters reported today that Ghana’s Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has decided to increase the farm gate price for the next cocoa year from 1,200 cedis ($1,090) to 1,632 cedis ($1,384) per ton. This is welcome news for cocoa farmers all over Ghana who have been complaining about the low prices offered by COCOBOD during the last season.
Ghana Secures Financing for 2008/09 Cocoa Season
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has just signed a $1 billion financing deal with a syndicate of international banks to finance cocoa buying for the 2008/09 cocoa season. The bank consortium includes both European and Japanese banks and is believed to be the largest soft commodity financing deal ever.
Readers of this blog will recall my analysis of financial flows that make the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative work (April 16th). The flow chart showed that the cooperative, as a licensed cocoa buyer, reports its anticipated target capacity to COCOBOD and then receives (as loans) the necessary funds to cover the buying of the cocoa from the farmers.
Continue reading “Ghana Secures Financing for 2008/09 Cocoa Season”
Another African Chocolate Producer
I just read that the South African company Chocolates by Tomes will begin making their own chocolate exclusively from African ingredients. According to an article at iAfrica.com, the company had previously imported its chocolate from Barry Callebaut but decided to begin its own production using cocoa from Ghana and the Côte d’Ivoire, vanilla from Madagascar and sugar and milk powder from South Africa. That’s a great development and I applaud Chocolatier Richard Tomes for taking this step.
Bonuses for Cocoa Farmers in Ghana
Over the past week, several sources reported that the Ghanian Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) released a second round of bonuses to cocoa farmers. According to the Joy Online, a total of GH¢16,035,161.35 (about $16.45 million) will be released to the Licensed Buying Companies for distribution to individual farmers. The amount translates to about GH¢1.71 ($1,75) per bag of cocoa. That does not seem much but for a country with an per capita income of $2,700 and many cocoa farmers making less than that, $1.75 per bag bonus makes a difference.
It is not clear, though, if that bonus is simply the high world market prices trickling down to the farmers. Much of the cocoa has already been sold in forward contracts and the current spot market prices apply to only a fraction of the cocoa sold. An more likely explanation is the election campaign going on in Ghana at the moment. The current president, John Kufuor, and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) came to power in 2004 and their term is up this December.
Divine Chocolate Wins Ethical Business Award
“I want to change the world with chocolate and doing with chocolate that’s great makes it easier..” That’s what Sophie Tranchell, managing director of Divine Chocolate, told me a year ago during an interview for my book on cocoa and chocolate. It seems she’s well on her way. A couple of weeks ago, my favorite chocolate company won the UK Observer’s 2008 Ethical Business award. The paper gave the following citation:
Owned by Ghanaian co-operative Kuapa Kokoo (meaning ‘good cocoa growers’), Divine turns over £10.7m per year – and 45,000 people in 1,200 villages get a share of the profits and make a collective decision on how to spend it. The award – coinciding with Divine’s 10th birthday – celebrates this empowering trade model.
The observer also posted a video about Divine. Continue reading “Divine Chocolate Wins Ethical Business Award”
