About Our Cooperative

Rooted in the Ashanti
Cocoa Belt

The Offinso Fine Flavour Cooperative Cocoa Farmers & Marketing Society Ltd. was established to unite smallholder cocoa farmers across the Offinso Municipal and Offinso-North Districts in the Ashanti Region — one of Ghana's most prolific cocoa-growing areas.

Offinso area was chosen since it is arguably considered to be in transitional zone in the Region hence; creating a very conducive environment required for disease resistance to plant varieties. The availability of land in the area also made very conducive to establish more farms to increase fine flavor production. The two cocoa farms were assessed to detect any disease and the soil were also tested by Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG). In 2010, 18 more farmers were added and their farms were established with bud woods from CRIG.

The 20 member group receive their certificate as an Association (Offinso Fine Flavor Association) at the Ghana Register General Department in 2011 with 15 males and 5 females. These farmers were trained at Bunso by Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana on the fine flavor variety, GAP, GEP etc. These farms were to be used to produce grafting materials (bud woods) to establish more fine flavor farms.

The Association harvested it first fine flavor beans in 2011 and quality test results from CRIG showed positive. This first harvest came from the two initial farms. The result enabled the Association and partners to conclude on the viability of the project. Following some sensitization activities in the communities increased the membership from 20 to 60 with each farmer dedicating an acre of land to establish fine flavor farms.

In 2016, the Association was re-registered as Offinso Fine Flavor Cocoa Farmers Cooperative and Marketing Society Limited under the “Co-operative Societies Decree” (NLCD No. 252) of 1968 and Regulations, (LI, No604) in Ghana, Ashanti Region for members to contribute in sustaining the project.

The Cooperative made a step forward to get certified under Fairtrade and the first AGM was held in 2016 at Offinso Methodist Church. The Cooperative made it first sells of 0.5MT of fine flavor and 175MT of Fairtrade Cocoa beans. With the help of partners, the Cooperative used part of its first premium to establish an irrigated bud wood cocoa farm, first of its kind in Ghana to continuously produce grafting materials (bud woods) and cocoa pods to establish more fine flavor farms for members.

Fine Flavour Cocoa Grafting and Management

Offinso fine flavor cooperative cocoa farmers and marketing society is committed to increase yield and quality of cocoa through:

• Quality Assurance Laboratory

• Certified Storage Facilities

• Farmer Training Programs

• Export Logistics Support

Our fine flavour cocoa trees begin producing cocoa pods 12 months after grafting and at 192 kg per Arce annually. Sustainable production is displayed through Re-grafting activities carried out by the coop during the rainy seasons every year to replace dead fine flavour cocoa trees.

The main harvesting period is from October to March within which the pod harvesting is carried out by our well trained field officers and later transported to our fermentation centre two days afterwards.