(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroonian coffee roasters process only 5% of national production of Arabica and Robusta coffees, according to the Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, who officially announced, on April 8, 2014, the holding of the second International Coffee Festival, Festicoffee 2014, from May 29 to 31.

This “hardly laudable” performance, according to the Minister, has not changed in three years and reflects a time when the country still had a national production of 45,000 tonnes, according to Omer Gatien Malédy, the Executive Secretary to the Inter-professional Cocoa and Coffee Council (CICC).

The CICC representative goes on to note that, over the last two seasons, despite the drastic decline in national coffee production, which remains at approximately 16,000 tonnes, “several coffee roasters have joined the market. Just stroll through your local grocery store and you’ll see that we have twenty local brands on the shelves.”

Indeed, in Cameroonian department stores, in addition to the highly renowned UCCAO coffee, there are numerous competitors offering many varieties of processed coffee. But, foreign companies show little interest in Cameroon’s coffee-roasting sector, except for “Cafés Pierre André”. “How much coffee are we producing to justify foreign coffee roasters coming here?” asked Mr Malédy.

He reveals, for example, that a year ago, the Nestlé group came with a project to build a coffee-roasting factory in Cameroon with a 30,000-tonne per annum capacity. “Annual production is only 16,000 tonnes. Where will they find enough coffee? I think we first need to produce. That will attract major coffee roasters,” indicates the CICC Executive Secretary.