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Ecom Ghana Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Rahul Gopinath has been named Cocoa Personality of the Year at the 2020 Ghana Cocoa Awards, held in Accra.
Gopinath, who also won the CEO of the Year award, beat out stiff competition from Cocoa Life Ghana director Yaa Peprah Amekudzi to win the ultimate award of the night.
Madam Peprah Amekudzi settled for the Sustainability Personality of the Year award, while Cocoa Life Ghana was also voted Sustainability Initiative of the Year.
This year’s event, dubbed the COVID-19 Resilience Edition and held under the theme ‘The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – Perspectives and Opportunities for Ghanaian Cocoa’, aimed to recognize the efforts of companies and people in the Ghanaian cocoa industry. within the year.
Other awards of the evening included Entrepreneur of the Year, which went to Michael Zormelo of Omnifert Limited, with Outstanding Contribution of the Year earned by Robert Austin, National Director of Meda Ghana.
In total, 30 awards were given to companies and individuals, as well as 12 special awards for personalities and institutions.
Speaking at the event, Ghana Cocoa Board CEO and 2019 Cocoa Personality of the Year, Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo congratulated the winners on their performance and efforts to ensure a vibrant cocoa industry.
He urged Ghanaians to consume cocoa products so that the country does not just produce for export, but companies can depend on local consumption.
With a population of more than 29 million and young people who are the majority, he said, cocoa products should be consumed here not only to boost local production, but also to ensure that young people get the health benefits of consuming cocoa products. cocoa.
The cocoa industry, he added, had great prospects as efforts were being made to ensure that Ghana produced three million metric tons of cocoa a year.
“We are now doing vertical production where 40 bags of cocoa can be produced on an acre of land with more than 2000 cocoa pods recorded on a tree, which means that farmers would not need large acres of land to produce cocoa.” he claimed.
Besides mechanized agriculture, he said, everyone would benefit from the $ 100 billion cocoa industry in the future.
Yofi Grant, Executive Director of the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), added that Ghana needed to do more when it comes to cocoa consumption despite being a world leader in production.
“Ghana exported a total of 13.4 million chocolate and other cocoa-containing products to the world, and Nigeria remains the largest consumer of Ghanaian chocolate,” he said.
“There are huge opportunities that Ghana has not seized with cocoa, and we are sitting on a product that has enormous potential that could be used,” he added.
However, he was optimistic that with ongoing interventions from the government and other stakeholders, the cocoa industry will grow and become very vibrant as expected.
Source: Peacefmonline.com
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