Entrepreneur tapping into Nigeria’s cocoa opportunity

Nigeria’s cocoa industry is emerging as a key driver of economic diversification. With growing global demand and surging investments, the sector could unlock new revenue streams and strengthen the country’s non-oil economy.

One entrepreneur capitalising on this potential is John Alamu, founder of Johnvents Group, an agribusiness and manufacturing firm. Johnvents this month announced a $40.5 million investment from British International Investment to boost its cocoa production.

Nigeria’s cocoa sector holds immense potential, yet the country’s export capacity remains underutilised. This investment will enable Johnvents Group to scale up its processing capabilities, meet growing global demand, and position Nigeria as a competitive player in the international cocoa market.

Alamu’s journey began while he was a monitoring and evaluation specialist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). He started by offering microloans to 10 farmers – a number that eventually swelled to a thousand. Spotting a gap, he began buying harvests (maize, soya beans, sorghum) from these farmers – his loan clients – and selling to larger regional agents. Margins were thin, though, so he explored cash crops. In 2016, with Nigeria facing a severe foreign currency shortage, cocoa’s forex potential stood out. After trading the crop, Alamu seized an opportunity to move into processing by acquiring a local cocoa factory.

Read our earlier interview with John Alamu: Nigerian businessman capitalises on opportunities in the cocoa industry

Unlocking cocoa’s value

Nigeria’s cocoa industry is undergoing a transformation, characterised by record-high prices, soaring exports, and an increasing investor appeal.

As the West African country accelerates efforts to diversify its economy beyond oil, cocoa is emerging as a key player – offering not just revenue but a chance to reclaim Nigeria’s place in the global cocoa market.

Cocoa prices in Nigeria surged by over 700% by December 2024 compared to January 2023, reaching an all-time high of ₦15 million (about US$10,000) per tonne, driven by global supply shortages, rising demand from Europe and Asia, and currency fluctuations, according to the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria.

Cocoa is already among the biggest non-oil exports in Nigeria and is largely grown by more than 300,000 small-scale farmers in the south of the country, according to the Cocoa Farmers Association.

Data from the World Atlas ranks Nigeria as the world’s seventh-largest cocoa producer, yielding approximately 270,000 metric tonnes annually. It trails Côte d’Ivoire, the global leader with over 2.3 million tonnes, followed by Ghana (653,000 tonnes), Indonesia (641,000 tonnes), Ecuador (375,000 tonnes), Brazil (296,000 tonnes), and Cameroon (295,000 tonnes).

Unlike global competitors that invest in processing, most African nations export raw cocoa, missing out on the industry’s real value. The global cocoa market was worth $45 billion in 2019 and is set to reach $61 billion by 2027, yet Africa captures only a fraction, according to the International Cocoa Council.

The tide is, however, slowly changing, not just in the volumes of production and pricing dynamics but also in terms of the investment flow into the country.

Shortages in the global markets, especially disruptions in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, also accelerated cocoa exports from Nigeria.
The latest (2025) data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveals that cocoa accounted for 7.12% of total agricultural exports, making it the best-performing crop of the year. Key export destinations included the Netherlands, Malaysia, Belgium, and Germany.

Notably, the NBS statistics for Q4 of 2024 show the oil sector, a conventionally dominant sector, contributed less than 5% to the national GDP, with non-oil economic activities surging in the quarter under review. Agriculture, for instance, contributed 25.59%.

In a 2025 interview on The Guardian, a Nigerian news outlet, Dominic Joshua, the founder of Cultivate Africa, an event organised by the Africa Union Commission with partners, noted that if the trend continues, “cocoa can generate more revenue than oil in the next decade… But the time to act is now”.

Additional reporting by Bonface Orucho, bird story agency

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