Photograph — Global trade review

Across Africa, there is a generation of ‘venturers’; entrepreneurs and innovators who are constantly establishing new businesses and developing new technologies to meet needs, solve problems, simplify lives and transform their societies. Princess Odiakosa of Kalabari Gecko Craft Chocolates is one such individual.

Odiakosa is one of the few emerging crop of Nigerian chocolatiers who is determined to place the country on the global chocolate map. According to her, making chocolates is her tiny contribution in enhancing Nigeria’s image and advancing it from being just a consumer of chocolates to a producer.

Ventures Africa(VA): What does your company do?

Princess Odiakosa(PO): We make chocolate products using locally sourced cocoa beans and ingredients.

VA: What made you start your company? When did you realise there was a gap that needed to be filled by your product?

PO: It cuts deeper than bridging a gap, it is more of doing our tiny bit for my country by enhancing her image whichever way we can. In Nigeria, Cocoa has been at the forefront of the Nigerian export story and history, and a reliable cash-crop, and as a people, we love chocolate… but we didn’t have locally produced chocolates. So I decided to start.

VA: What is unique about your product?

PO: I wanted to create a product that speaks Nigerian at first glance, a product that identifies with the people and what we are about. It is more our sweet little tourism campaign in a box.

Princess Odiakosa, Owner, Kalabari Gecko Chocolate

VA: Tell us a little about your team.

PO: We are a very little team of passionate people who are not just passionate about chocolates, but also about the craft of chocolate making and consequently our contribution to the cocoa-chocolate industry in Nigeria.

VA: What is most challenging about running your business?

PO: Having to deal with poor electricity supply has been the biggest of our problems ever! It hugely affects production time, storage and the pricing of our final products.

VA: How do you market your products?

PO: We primarily employ the use of social media and word of mouth in marketing our chocolates.

VA: With your present industry knowledge and experience, what would you have done differently when you started out?

PO: I currently work at a financial consulting firm, but constantly seeking more insights and understanding for the business. We are growing at a pace where we are working and learning, and trying as best as possible not to smother the business, as chocolate making is still novel in Nigeria. We have a very strong need to produce excellent products. So no regrets.

VA: What gives you the most satisfaction as an entrepreneur?

PO: The act of creating, making a product from scratch. And the satisfaction of a customer.

VA: What government policies would create a better environment for your business?

PO: More grace for start-ups, and a growth-enabling environment. A mandate for shops to stock at least 70 percent locally produced and manufactured products. Great countries didn’t just wake up one morning to find themselves great. It took a lot of favourable policies and an aperture to foster entrepreneurial growth.

VA: When and how do you plan to scale up?

PO: We are currently in the process of scaling up. We’ve been operating a home factory, but we just got a factory space.

VA: What is your advice for other entrepreneurs looking to set up a business in this industry?

PO: All you need is love and passion for chocolate making, especially in the case of bean to bar.

Contact or follow Kalabari Gecko Craft Chocolates on social media

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