Pilot Plants to Process Cocoa by-products in Ghana.

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Brief Description

The project investigated and developed three industries based on processing of three categories of cocoa wastes and by-products. These were: 1) Cocoa pod husk-based industry for production of animal feed; 2) Cocoa pulp juice or cocoa sweatings-based industry for production of alcohol, pectin, jelly, marmalade, jam, wine, vinegar and soft drink; 3) Discarded cocoa-based industry for production of cocoa butter toilet soap, and cocoa butter pomade . The financial and economic viability of the these were analysed.

Project Objectives

The overall objective of the project was to develop and transfer appropriate technologies for the commercial processing of cocoa by-products and cocoa wastes to improve the income-generating capacity of the cocoa industry in cocoa-producing countries.

Project Results

The project established pilot scale plants for the processing of cocoa wastes and by-products into useful projects.

The cocoa pod husk plant collects and processes fresh cocoa pod husk into animal feed and soft soap using potash. Full annual production capacity was about 5,500 tonnes of pelletized animal feed and 100,000 tablets of soft soap of 500 grams unit weight.

The cocoa sweatings plant collects and processes cocoa sweatings into gin via distillation of alcohol, and jelly with the use of pectin. Full annual production capacity was about 21,000 litres of alcohol processed into about 56,000 bottles of cocoa gin of 750ml, and over 200,000 jars of jelly of 450g.

The discarded cocoa beans plant extracted cocoa butter from cocoa beans discards and process them into cocoa butter soap and pomade. Full annual production capacity was about 300 tonnes of cocoa butter soap and about 30 tonnes of pomade.

The results of the economic analysis of the enterprises indicated a negative Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for the cocoa pod husk based enterprise and positive IRRs for the cocoa sweatings based enterprise and for the discarded cocoa beans based enterprise. The negative IRR for the cocoa pod husk based industry demonstrated that it was very unlikely that this type of enterprise could be made profitable.

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