The Swiss fair-trade company Gebana, founded in 1973, plans to produce directly in Togo in the future in order to manufacture chocolate of “Swiss quality” there.

Gebana is investing €1.3 million in building production capacities in the country. Although 70% of the cocoa traded worldwide is grown in West Africa, only 22% is processed locally into cocoa mass. The Swiss company aims to change this, as a locally produced chocolate bar has a higher added value than raw cocoa. Of the retail price of a standard chocolate bar, about 10% remains in the country; for Gebana chocolate, this share is intended to be 50%.

The initial preparatory work has already been completed. In a small pilot manufactory, the subsidiary Gebana-Togo in Lomé now produces around two tonnes of chocolate per year.
Starting in 2027, production is expected to be expanded to an industrial scale. The organic-certified factory is intended to create 30 new jobs and provide purchase guarantees for another 1,000 farming families.

By 2030, the company aims for an annual capacity of 74 tonnes of chocolate, around 200 tonnes of cocoa mass, and approximately 20 tonnes each of cocoa butter and cocoa powder. According to the company, quality is a question of technology. With the same technology and Swiss production know-how, “Swiss Quality” can also be produced in Togo.

This will make Gebana Togo the largest chocolate manufacturer in Togo. Togo produced around 24,000 tonnes of cocoa in the 2024/25 period, while neighbouring Ghana — the world’s second-largest producer — produced roughly 700,000 tonnes.