(Business in Cameroon) - Through his Paris-based company “Champagnes Bernard Njandja”, Franco-Cameroonian IT consultant  Bernard Ntchuisseu Njandja recently launched his luxury champagne brand. An oenologist by passion, Bernard was born Ntchuisseu Njandja in Yagoua, Northern Cameroon, in 1976. On its website, his company explains that “Champagnes Bernard Njandja is a dream come true.”

Currently, the company’s two types of champagne can be ordered online. The first type “Royal,” “prepared from 25% reserve wine,” is sold at €98.4 per bottle or about XAF65,000. The second type is the Brut “produced from 60% reserve wine.” It costs €48.7 or about XAF32,000. 

“He offers ultra-luxury champagne affordable to everyone and Cameroonians in particular.  For the label of his champagne, he has decided to use his birth year, 1976, and the crown of the Makaini dynasty (ed. note: the dynasty is located in North Cameroon), thus symbolizing his rank as the prince of that dynasty,” comments an internet user as a call to Cameroonians who are reputed champagne consumers in Africa. 

According to data published by the Interprofessional Committee for Champagne Wine (CIVC), in 2018, Cameroon was the sixth-largest champagne importer in Africa with €4.212 million (about XAF2.7 billion) spent to import 156,212 75-cl bottles of champagne.

On the African continent, the country was far behind South Africa (21st largest importer in the world with 1,061,612 bottles imported), Nigeria (27th largest world importer with 582,243 bottles imported), Côte d’Ivoire (40th world largest importer with 303,250 bottles), and DRC (47th world largest importer with 171,349 bottles imported).

Brice R. Mbodiam