Ghana gets ISO certification to determine quality of cocoa beans exported from W/A

The Quality Control Company (QCC) under COCOBOD has received international certification from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) with support from the Swiss government.

This follows years of the export of quality cocoa beans from Ghana to the world market.

The two quality certificates meant for cocoa testing and inspection are ISO IEC 17020 and ISO IEC 17025.

This ISO certification makes the QCC the only company in the sub-region whose certification of cocoa beans is accepted globally.

“QCC has been recognized internationally for a good job in cocoa inspection and certification. It means we can be called upon to do inspection and standardization of cocoa in the sub-region,” Managing Director of the QCC, Nana Maxwell Kakari Addo told JoyBusiness.

Even as Ghana remains a leading producer of premium cocoa in the world, the country’s sister producing economy, Ivory Coast, continues to face some cases of the low quality of cocoa beans.

This phenomenon according to Nana Maxwell Kakari Addo, will be overturned as “Ghana will closely assist Ivory Coast in ensuring they meet international standards moving forward.”

Swiss Ambassador to Ghana, Phillip Stalder, congratulated COCOBOD, saying these accreditations are achievements which mark a significant milestone for the Ghanaian cocoa industry.

He expressed the belief that with appropriate investment, the Ghanaian cocoa sector can do much better in future. He added that Switzerland will continue to support the Ghanaian cocoa industry.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Government of Ghana, Government of Switzerland and Quality Control Company Limited (QCC) have launched a new country programme to improve trade quality and standards of cashew, oil palm and cocoa exports in Accra.

The Global Quality and Standards Programme (GQSP) is an innovative programme developed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and UNIDO to address country-specific quality and standards compliance capacity challenges in partner countries to facilitate market access for SMEs in selected value chains.