DTI TO HELP BUILD-UP CACAO PRODUCTION

Huge market opportunities are in store for Filipino cacao farmers as global demand for cacao-based chocolates continue to surge.

The Philippines’ current cacao bean export is smaller than neighboring countries with a global market share of less than 0.01 percent, an official from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said.

Trade Assistant Secretary Rafaelita Aldaba said that the production of cacao beans in the Philippines has dropped to 6.02 metric tons (MT) in 2015 as compared to the 35,000 MT produced in the 1990’s. In 2014, only eight Filipino firms were reported to have had exports amounting to more than $500,000.

The total trade of cacao-chocolate in the global value chain has doubled over the past 10 years, between 2005 and 2016, with an estimated $40 billion for 2016, said Aldaba, during the second-day of the National Cacao Congress held in Cebu City last Wednesday.

“The cacao industry presents opportunities for growth and employment but we need to increase our volume of certified beans produced, increase productivity by process upgrading with focus on gaining international certifications and seek to diversify cacao bean varieties into high value and bulk markets,” said Aldaba, who also offered her key recommendation for opportunities to upgrade processes, production, and diversification of the cacao beans.

‘Sweet’ Opportunities

The DTI official said exports of chocolate are up by 56 percent, cacao beans by 19 percent, cacao butter by 12 percent, cacao liquor or paste by eight percent and cacao powder by six percent.

The demand for cacao beans to produce chocolate products is concentrated in Europe and the United States, while the pro- duction of cacao beans remains exclusively in the territory of developing countries such as Africa, South America, and Asia.

Ironically, the demand for chocolates in Asia has increased from $13 billion to $14 billion in 2016, according to a report by Eu- romonitor in 2016.

Top five chocolate players are Mondelez, Mars, Nestle, Ferrero and Hershey’s. None of these brands, however, grow their own cacao beans, but, get high revenues by producing chocolates for export.