Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire – Côte d’Ivoire is the world's main source of cocoa beans, yet for decades, Ivorians rarely tasted chocolate made from their own crops. Determined to change that, Axel Emmanuel Gbaou founded his own business transforming locally grown cocoa into chocolate – and helping farmers to master more of the lucrative steps from bean to bar.
Speaking to RFI from his workshop in Cocody, an upmarket suburb of Abidjan, Gbaou recalls that before he started his venture 10 years ago, "there wasn’t a single chocolate bar made in Côte d’Ivoire".
