KOA secures additional capital to expand production capacity

Since its establishment in 2017, Koa has grown its team to 71 who upcycle the cocoa fruit and work with more than 2,200 smallholders that benefit from the extra income. Through its concept, the Swiss-Ghanian startup aims to address some of the challenges in the cocoa industry, which has continued to struggle with systemic market failures leading to an unfair value chain where farmers are the losers, often continuing to live below the poverty line.

Koa is on a path to transform the industry by valorising the whole cocoa fruit, thereby directly improving farmers’ living income through additional earnings from the previously unused cocoa fruit, reducing up to 75% of food waste by upcycling the entire cocoa fruit and contributing to a positive climate change by reducing the carbon emissions of the cocoa and chocolate industry.

The company has developed a Mobile fruit processing system, also known as Community Mobile Processing Unit (CMPU), to extract the cocoa pulp in the center of the communities, next to the cocoa farms, even in remote areas. Currently, the factory in Assin Akrofuom (Ghana) has already upcycled 760,000 kg of cocoa fruit juice and pulp. The resulting products include Koa Pure (a cocoa fruit juice), Koa Concentrate and Koa Powder for use in food and drinks.

The construction of its second factory, which will create 250 additional jobs and add up to 10,000 smallholders to the Koa network, is under construction. Thanks to the strategic investment from responsAbility Investment AG, the startup is now financially equipped to finalise the factory construction and continue purchasing and producing cocoa pulp products in Ghana. “The cocoa fruit is a seasonal crop, and Koa typically produces a large portion of its annual production in Q4 each year. The working capital facility from responsAbility allows Koa to grow its current production capacities and work with more farmers”, explains Andrea Werdin, Marketing Director at Koa.

“We are now scaling our business operations in Ghana by building Africa’s largest cocoa fruit factory that enables our path to profitability. Our goal is to make the cocoa pulp upcycling a standard that shows cocoa smallholders in West Africa a way out of poverty. In addition to the pulp, we are researching the further, untapped potential that cocoa farms harbour to be able to support cocoa farmers to a greater extent,” she adds.

Besides responsibility, Koa is backed by private and institutional impact investors, including Haltra Group, IDH Farmfit Fund and the Landscape Resilience Fund. Last year, the startup raised USD 10 million.

(RAN)