What is the feeling like when someone gifts you chocolate on special days and especially in the month of love?
Tetteh Quarshie, our legend, introduced cocoa to Ghana in 1895, upon his arrival from his farm in the Eastern Region with cocoa beans from Fernando Po, now an island in Bioko, Equatorial Guinea.
Across Ghana, cocoa is grown and processed into a variety of goods, such as chocolate, cocoa butter cream, cocoa butter lotion, cocoa drinks, Milo, etc. All of these products are essential to the development and growth of the human system and the nation as a whole.
Cocoa butter, a product made from cocoa, has a decent source of vitamin E, which benefits the body in many ways. Vitamin E supports vision, reproduction, and the health of your skin, brain, and blood. Cocoa butter contains a high amount of fatty acids, and that acid creates a protective barrier that holds in moisture and prevents your skin from drying.
According to research, chocolate and cocoa-based products lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of clotting, increase blood circulation to the heart, and lower the risk of stroke.
The Ghana Tourism Authority 2005 introduced the National Chocolate Day to align with valentine’s day which falls on the 14th of February as a way of promoting Ghana’s cocoa and cocoa-based products, especially chocolate, in this month of love.
In recent times, there has been a strong collaboration with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and Cocoa Processing Companies (CPC) to make it a whole week, therefore giving it the name “National Chocolate Week.” The theme for this year is “Eat Chocolate, Stay Healthy, Grow Ghana,” with the sub-theme “My Chocolate Experience, Eat Chocolate and Enjoy Healthy Life”.
As part of the Ghana Tourism Authority’s objective to promote domestic tourism through Ghanaian culture, the initiative See Ghana, Wear Ghana, and Feel Ghana was launched to promote the consumption of Ghana-made products, and also to ignite the Ghanaian spirit to patronize these Ghana-made products and also cocoa-based products like chocolate because of the benefits derived from them.
Although the Ghana Tourism Authority promotes Ghana domestically, it also does so internationally. With this, they attend international conferences that are fairs and exhibitions where cocoa and cocoa-based products like chocolate are showcased. This is done to encourage the consumption of chocolate and to market cocoa-based products internationally. Recent fairs and exhibitions attended by the Ghana Tourism Authority to promote chocolate and cocoa-based products include Vakantiebeurs in the Netherlands. Another is the Spain FITUR, where Ghana’s cocoa and cocoa-based products like chocolate are exhibited in one of the biggest Spanish markets.
The National Chocolate Week is mainly intended to increase domestic consumption of Ghana’s chocolate and other cocoa-based products, promote tourism, and give Valentine’s Day in Ghana a healthy orientation.
When was the last time you enjoyed a bar of chocolate?
This National Chocolate Week, let’s all eat more chocolate and consume more natural cocoa to refresh and strengthen the body.
Together, let’s all share some chocolate as a way of expressing our love to others this National Chocolate Week.
Happy National Chocolate Week
Written by;
Hafsat Salih
Racheal Asantewaa Boadi
Dzivenoo Franklin Kwame
National Service Personnels
(CORPORATE AFFAIRS, Ghana Tourism Authority)
