• (Business in Cameroon) - Cameroon’s cocoa featured at the 2025 Osaka Expo through 820 chocolate samples

• Early feedback suggests potential to capture up to 5 % of Japan’s cocoa market

• Japan’s interest spans a decade, though industrial projects remain slow to materialize

Cameroon’s cocoa was in the spotlight at the world exposition held from September 14 to 18, 2025, in Osaka, Japan, according to information shared on October 20, 2025, during a press conference by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). As part of the PICS Cameroon project, led by the UN agency and funded by the Japanese government, 820 chocolate samples produced by Japanese artisans using cocoa beans from different Cameroonian production areas were distributed to the public. The objective was to test large-scale consumer appreciation for Cameroonian cocoa and assess its potential on the Japanese market.

The initial feedback is considered encouraging by project promoters. “Consumers and artisan chocolatiers told us that Cameroon’s cocoa has strong potential and meets all the requirements to enter the Japanese market, where it will compete with Ghanaian and Tanzanian cocoa. Cameroon’s cocoa could eventually capture 5 % of the Japanese market because it shares all the characteristics of products available in Japan,” said Francis Nzuko, national coordinator of the PICS Cameroon project, quoted by the state-owned daily Cameroon Tribune.

Japan has shown interest in Cameroonian cocoa for more than a decade, but announced projects have been slow to materialize. “We know very well that Cameroonian cocoa is of good quality. Some trading companies in Japan are interested in Cameroon’s cocoa. That is why I came to meet with the Minister of Trade to see how to develop this opportunity. There are many possibilities. Consumers increasingly seek premium cocoa,” said Kunio Okamura, Japan’s ambassador to Cameroon, after a meeting at the Ministry of Trade in Yaoundé on December 13, 2017.

On March 3, 2022, Japan’s ambassador to Cameroon, Takaoka Nozomu, signed a partnership agreement with André Thomas Bengon, mayor of the Ebolowa 2 municipality, to support a project to build a cocoa bean processing unit in this locality of the South region. The project aims to strengthen local processing and capture more value in the cocoa sector. Since then, however, little information has emerged about its progress, leaving the industrial materialization of Japanese interest in Cameroonian cocoa uncertain.