Chocolates are one of few special supplies that are popular on Valentine Day.
Despite Ghana being a producer of chocolate, it faces competition from imported chocolates which have taken over the retail chocolate industry.
Citi Business News has been finding out how well Ghanaian chocolates are faring on the shelves of shops especially on this day where its demand is high.
Checks by Citi Business News at various retail shops across Accra show that though both local and foreign chocolates are in high demand this year, the local ones appear to be ahead.
The Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) runs a confectionery factory which manufactures chocolate bars, chocolate spread and drinking chocolate among others.
With the chocolate bar, its flagship products are the GoldenTree de luxe chocolate bars they come in seven brands, Kingsbite, Oranco, Akuafo, Coffee Choc, Portem Nut, Portem Pride and Tetteh Quarshie.
Public Relations and Human Resource Manager at the company, Ekow Rhule tells Citi Business News patronage of their chocolates has been so high, they run out of their products a week ago.
“It’s been so high. Getting to the end of last week we learnt about some shortages in town. So quickly we had to mobilize and produce more for the market. So that is the good side. This time around it looks like production is high.”
He added that the company is currently ahead of the game in terms of competition and patronage.
“We don’t see that as competition at all. We don’t see any of the imported ones on the street because they will melt under our weather here in Ghana. So we don’t consider it as too much of a problem. The fact that we have increased production this time around over and above what we normally do shows that we don’t have any strong competitor to worry about,” he stated.
A visit to the Adabraka branch of Placito, a gift and card shop also revealed that patronage of foreign chocolates also shot up significantly over the past week.
Michael who mans the shop attributed the high patronage to the valentine day celebration.
“Patronage is very high and they are patronizing because it’s in gift boxes and well packaged so people are really patronizing them. Some go for are GHc60, GHc50, GHc45 and GHc10.”
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana.
