Choco Togo
Choco Togo is a Togolese bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturer. It is structured as a cooperative and produces chocolate from domestically grown cocoa beans. It was founded in 2014 by a group of Togolese entrepreneurs who had trained as chocolatiers in Italy. Most of its chocolate is sold locally at affordable prices, but a few sales have been made to international buyers. Chocolate bars produced by Choco Togo are unique in that they are heat resistant, able to withstand temperatures of up to.
Founding
Choco Togo was established as part of an international project started by the European Union in 2013. The project, titled "Fair, Young, Sustainable, Inclusive, and Cooperative", aimed to "promote cooperative and inclusive thinking" among youth in Togo. Sixty Togolese youths were trained in entrepreneurial practices and cooperative living by the Enfant-Food-Développement association, with the support of Côte d'Ivoire, the Czech Republic, and Italy, the sponsor country. Six individuals from the larger group were then selected to travel to Sicily, Italy, for further training in chocolate making. During their time in Sicily, the trainees received instruction in cocoa processing, fair trade, tourism, and e-commerce. Upon returning to Togo, the trainees learned that domestic cocoa processing had not been attempted in the country since the colonial era, and most Togolese cocoa farmers did not know about chocolate. The trainees therefore decided to create a brand of "Made in Togo" chocolate and founded the Choco Togo cooperative in March 2014.Operations
At the beginning, Choco Togo was funded solely by its founders. The cooperative lacked the high-performance machines used in Sicily to produce high quality chocolate, and resorted to working with unsuitable equipment. However, these financial and equipment issues were alleviated in 2015, when Choco Togo won a number of entrepreneurial and agricultural awards which included millions of West African francs in prize money. Later that same year, the cooperative held the first chocolate fair in Togo, and received an order for 4,000 chocolate bars from Togo's Ministry of Posts and Digital Economy.To source high-quality cocoa, Choco Togo tasked the Federation of Unions of Coffee-Cocoa Producers with identifying a domestic cocoa producer with organic certification. A producer representing 1,500 smallhold farmers in Akébou Prefecture was selected. Once harvested, the cocoa is transported to Kpalimé, Akébou Prefecture, where forty local women perform the initial processing, which includes sorting, roasting, shelling, and grinding. The resulting powder is then sent to Lomé, where it is refined into chocolate paste. The paste is tempered and molded into chocolate bars, most of which are sold locally at affordable prices. However, Choco Togo also sells chocolate to Asky Airlines and at one point exported 2.2 tonnes of cocoa beans to Japan.