Cocoa Development Company eyes US$100m revenue by 2030

THE Cocoa Development Company of TT Ltd (CDCTTL) hopes to turn a US$5.9 million investment in a strategic plan into US$100 million in revenues over the next five years.

Speaking to Newsday after its fourth National Cocoa Awards at NESC auditorium in Couva on April 9, CDCTTL's acting CEO Mala Partap said the international demand is there but, due to various challenges, the country is unable to produce the 2,000 metric tons being demanded.

"The major challenges the sector is facing at this point in time is low production as a result of climate change, pests and disease, but most importantly our ageing tree stock."

Partap said the plan intends to tackle these challenges, such as replacing the ageing trees to help ramp up the production.

She said the country currently exports around 350-500 metric tons annually but hopes it could be increased to 2,500 metric tons by 2030 and 5,000 metric tons by 2035 through the strategic plan, which began in October.

She said among the countries TT exports to are US, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, China and the Caribbean region.

"Depending on the type of cocoa, it could fetch between US$12,000 to US$15,000 per metric ton," she said. "If the strategic plan is successful, it could see annual revenues of US$30 million from 2030."

TT holds an exceptional record at the global Cocoa of Excellence (CoEx) competition.

Speaking at the ceremony, CoEx technical committee chair Darin Suka said TT holds the most titles in the competition among cocoa-producing countries – a total of 14 titles.

Another challenge to export revenues, Partap said, was the increased local demand for cocoa as many growers have found value-added products to be lucrative.

She said the local market consumes around 300 metric tons annually.

"So that's eating into our revenues."

Partap admitted US president Donald Trump's global "reciprocal" tariffs could negatively impact their plans as imports to the US from TT were slapped with a ten per cent fee.

"It is a top buyer. How it works is that brokers are based in the US. They represent chocolatiers all over the world, chocolatiers are mostly in Europe but they are in the US for logistics, making it easier to do business. Just recently we had a visitor from a broker who is representing...several buyers in the EU and Japan but he's based in New Jersey.

"But we also sell to chocolatiers in the US."

She said the CDCTTL is currently seeking clarity on the tariffs and is hoping agricultural products could be exempted from them.

"All we know is that it's a blanket tariff. We don't know if it's applying to agricultural commodities. I'm hearing it may not apply to some petrochemical products too so we are hoping it would not apply to agricultural products but we still have to get some confirmation on what the tariff would apply to."

However, she said China was "very very interested" in the locally-produced cocoa and has been supporting the CDCTTL through the Food and Agricultural Organisation.

Speaking during the awards ceremony, Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture Avinash Singh said agriculture could be more lucrative for the country than oil and gas.

"A barrel of brent crude today is trading at US$60.70 per barrel. West Texas is trading at US$37.55 per barrel. Natural gas is US$3.53 per mmbtu compared to our cocoa sector.

"One metric tonne of cocoa Trinidad fine or flavour beans sells for US$12,000 per metric ton. Hot pepper for example, one bag of hot pepper of 40 pounds, is actually trading today in our Namdevco (National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation) markets at $1,000 which is US$147.28 per bag compared to one barrel of oil."

Copping top place in the National Cocoa Awards was Mariella Pierre-Peschier with a bean score of 9.1 out of ten.

Her cocoa, along with those of four other top contenders would be submitted to the Cocoa of Excellence international competition.