Kate Fotso doubles cocoa market share as exports collapse

Cameroon shipped 125,469 tonnes of raw cocoa beans in the season that closed on July 15, down 66,543 tonnes or 34.65% on the year before. Kate Fotso shipped a third more than she did last time.

Her company, Telcar Cocoa, exported 40,631 tonnes, giving it 32.4% of everything that left the country, according to figures the Office National du Cacao et du Café released at the launch of the new season. It exported 30,497 tonnes the previous year for a 15.7% share. Volumes rose 33.2% while the market around her contracted by a third, which doubled her share of it.

Fotso, known in Cameroon as the queen of cocoa, is back on top of a trade she lost control of a year ago. Telcar had been the local partner of the American trading house Cargill, and the two parted company before the 2024-2025 season. She finished that year in second place.

Ofi Cam now sits behind her with 24,394 tonnes, or 19.44%. SBET, which led the market last season with 36,215 tonnes and an 18.7% share, fell to third on 23,223 tonnes. The three of them accounted for 70.3% of Cameroonian exports between them.

Almost all of it went to Europe. The continent took 84.62% of shipments, or 113,528 tonnes, with the Netherlands the largest single destination. Asia took 14%, and the Americas and Africa took roughly 1% apiece.

The season was punishing for everyone selling into it. Export earnings at the port of Douala came to 400.9 billion CFA francs, about $712 million at 562.9 francs to the dollar, down 673 billion francs or 63% from 1,074.6 billion the year before. The collapse in earnings ran far ahead of the fall in volumes because prices went with them. Free-on-board prices at Douala ranged between 3,808 and 7,536 francs a kilogram through 2024-2025. This season the range was 1,520 to 3,110 francs, a drop of 58% to 60%.

Two things drove the volume shortfall. Marketed national production fell 19.9% to 247,914 tonnes from 309,518, leaving less bean available to buy. And a great deal of what was harvested never moved. Closing stocks reached 40,446 tonnes against 13,946 a year earlier, meaning 26,500 additional tonnes sat unsold at the end of the season, most likely because growers and traders were unwilling to let go of beans at prices that had more than halved.

Local processing fell too, by more than 15%. The ONCC published the numbers without offering an explanation for the decline.

The consequences reach past the cocoa trade. Cocoa passed crude oil in 2025 to become Cameroon’s largest export earner, carried by the price surge of the 2023-2024 season. The national statistics institute put cocoa beans at 26.3% of export receipts that year against 22.9% for crude. A 63% fall in cocoa earnings makes holding that position for a second year unlikely.

Fotso founded Telcar Cocoa in 1994 and built it into the country’s dominant exporter over three decades, running for most of that period as Cargill’s route into Cameroonian beans. What this season shows is that the business held together without the American partner, and gained ground while the trade around it was losing money.