Niche Cocoa Industry Ltd, a privately held company based in Ghana, will soon open a semi-finished and finished chocolate manufacturing facility in the US.  

To that end, the company has acquired an existing 44,000-square-foot factory building in Franklin, Wisconsin, where it will install cocoa processing and chocolate manufacturing facilities. The facility, planned in partnership with the Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company, is expected to be fully operational by January 2023 and will then process around 1,200 containers of cocoa cake from Ghana into cocoa powder, cocoa liquor and finished chocolates annually.

Founded in 2011, Niche Cocoa Industry operates a cocoa processing factory in the Tema Free Zones Enclave, 15 minutes from Ghana's largest container port. After considerable investment, annual capacity is 60,000 tonnes, according to press reports. For some time now, Niche Cocoa Industry has also been active in the market as a bean-to-bar producer with a capacity of 10,000 tonnes of cocoa powder and refined chocolate products per year.

The Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company was founded in 1991 by Steve and Jonathan Wallace and has since pioneered the local production of chocolates from bean to bar in Ghana. According to information, factory employees and farmer families have a stake in the company. “Together, we’re creating cocoa products and compelling employment in both the U.S., and Ghana,” Steve  Wallace said about the cooperation with Niche.