Helping Cacao Farmers in Ghana with "Real" Ghana Chocolates

I'm with "The Real Ghana Chocolate Production Project." The aim of our project is to introduce Ghanaian culture and the current situation of cacao farmers there to the Japanese public. We sell 100% made-in-Ghana chocolate and hold workshops on making chocolate from cacao beans.

When I first enrolled at Sophia University, the campus was more globalized than I expected, and I was surprised that the use of English was taken for granted by many students, both foreign and Japanese. I had never even traveled overseas before, so to overcome my insecurities, in the summer of my freshman year I got an internship in Ghana teaching children. In spite of my very limited English ability, I set off determined to give it a try.

In the village where I stayed, half the residents were cacao farmers. Until then, my perception of Ghana had been of chocolate, and my friends had asked me to bring back souvenirs of Ghana chocolate. But the reality was quite different. The chocolate distributed in Ghana was a luxury item, one bar costing the same as one meal. Hardly any of the villagers bought it. They also didn't know how it was produced from the cacao beans that they grew, or that it was consumed in such large quantities in Japan. So I held a workshop on how to make chocolate. It was a very simple form of chocolate, made just by mashing some cacao and adding sugar, but the children were all delighted. Every time I saw them after that, they would ask me, "Kensuke, when are we going to make chocolate again?"

After returning to Japan, I could not get that workshop out of my mind. What I recalled most was the smiling faces of the children as they ate the chocolate. I really wanted to continue this kind of activity, so, together with a friend I had met in Ghana, I launched the Real Ghana Chocolate Production Project. After learning the production method from a professional chocolatier, we held more than 20 workshops in Japan to make chocolate from Ghanaian cacao. Every workshop attracted 20 to 40 participants, and our activities gradually became more widely known. I found this really satisfying, but also felt a growing desire to take on a new challenge.

Next, we started selling chocolate that was made with only Ghanaian cacao. In Ghana, the government buys cacao beans from farmers at fixed prices, which means the farmers focus more on quantity than quality. But handmade chocolate using only high-grade cacao beans and sugar has a strong cacao flavor and is delicious. We thought that if we could make this kind of chocolate with the local people, it might change their lives. This approach of starting the chocolate-making process with the cacao beans and finishing with the end product is called "Bean to Bar" and is gaining popularity in the West. It has also been attracting attention in Japan recently, mainly among chocolatiers. This encouraged us to try it in Japan, and this year we were able to sell our chocolate at department stores in Tokyo and Osaka for Valentine's Day.

Our chocolate was completely made in Ghana, from the harvesting of the cacao to the making of the finished product. We wanted everything to be produced in Ghana, including the packaging, which was made from a traditional Ghanaian fabric. Although about 85% of the cacao used for Japanese chocolate is from Ghana, Ghana manufactures only a tiny amount of chocolate domestically. Many people were very interested when we explained our thoughts on making our100% made-in-Ghana chocolate. As a result, about 600 chocolates quickly sold out. We were delighted that our chocolates were so popular with so many people.

I had never experienced making sweets before, even though I have a sweet tooth, but now people associate my name with chocolate. I can talk about cacao and chocolate for hours on end - that's how absorbed I am in this project. I want to find a job in the future that is somehow connected to chocolate and cacao.

In early April, I went to Ghana to give the profit from the sale of chocolate at the Valentine's Day event to our partner farmer. The earnings will be used toward his son's high school tuition. I'm so grateful for the support of the many people we have met so far, who are the reason we've come this far. In the future, I hope to continue the best parts of our work while finding new and interesting initiatives. I will always remember the challenge of this project and the gratitude of the people as I continue my activities.

Real Ghana Chocolate Production Project official Facebook page