 Welcome back to the 18th channel. It's your boy Mr. Ghana Baby and I hope you've already liked the video even before watching. Are you new to the channel? Please do me a favor and subscribe to the channel. Like 481,000 subscribers. Can we just reach 500,000 subscribers? I literally get more than 50,000 views, so which means that if 50,000 people are watching me, you can share the video to your friends and family so that we'll be able to reach the 500,000 as soon as possible. I don't know why I'm so happy today because I feel like Ghanians are amazing. I feel like there are so many Ghanians that are doing incredible stuffs in Ghana that nobody is showing this to the world. There is a woman in Ghana who used the cocoa bean and processed it into a chocolate. So from the bean to the bar, which is amazing. And you know what, she doesn't even have a factory. She's doing this right from her home. We gotta put this on camera. And if you're watching this video, please do me a favor and share this video. And I can't wait to visit all the 54 African countries and show these amazing things that is happening in your country to the world. Hi, you Maya, come with me. Let's talk to the owner. Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you too. You're doing an amazing job. And everyone out there is telling me that I need to meet you, the Ghana woman who converted the bean to the bar. This is incredible. But it is in so many people out there that don't know who you are. But I know you personally, No personally but I've heard a lot about you. So if you can give me a chance to get your love when it comes to love, you can tell me your name, where you from I just, I'm here for your story that's why I'm here my name is Jean I draw a donko I'm originally from Asantea Skori and Wenchi and I went to West Lagals High School after living outside for several years my family decided to move back to Ghana to see what we could contribute and we thought we'd been out for a while and we thought let's go see what's there after all it's home I find that a lot of Africans doesn't matter how long they are away you always look back so we came in and I worked what you'd call corporate Ghana for a while when I decided to start this chocolate business out of curiosity to see what I could do with Coco you said you lived outside for a while where were you I was in the US for how long I was in the US I would say for almost 20 years 20 years consistently then I think I was on and off there for about 2 years what were you doing in the state I went to school then I worked there as well as a legal assistant for years after 20 years you decided to come back home I know a lot of people are there who are watching us at this very moment anytime I tell them it's time to come back home it's an even more exciting time to come back home than when I did happening in Ghana and on the continent particularly for young people there's a time for you to grab things and just run with it there's an excitement going on I don't know if it's an African renaissance it's a Ghana renaissance but there's so much to do I think there's so much opportunity here to be back home and to be part of I don't get left behind it's tough but it's tough everywhere it's tough everywhere and you know I made it and if I did anybody else can do it she made it that's the reason why boy with the Ghana baby is here but I just wanted to know why this chocolate factory I mean it's a factory but a homemade chocolate from the bean to the bar why decided to go to chocolate because there's so many things to do in here but I decided to choose chocolate I went with chocolate because first of all I was curious you know how is it possible that in all this in all these years with cocoa beans having such an impact on the economy of this country all of us where most of us growing up most of my classmates went to school on what we call the cocoa market in both scholarship so cocoa had something to do with all of us but we don't eat it I mean it talked to the farmers they don't even know what Milo is some of them and if they do they don't even know how much cocoa is in Milo a minuscule amount of cocoa cocoa is very versatile and so in my research I saw that wait a minute the cocoa beans growing here but we don't eat what comes out of the cocoa beans we don't use what comes out of the cocoa beans we all want to share butter but there's cocoa butter yes there's cocoa butter there's what we call cocoa liquor which is when you take the cocoa butter away what is left there's cocoa husk cocoa tea cocoa for cosmetics cocoa for health the health benefits of cocoa are just documented not anecdotal but documented so I thought let me learn about cocoa let me learn about it and do it in a way that is beneficial to me and to my customers so which year was this 2016 2016 I never forget the day I finished voting I came back and started my first order was that your first voting in Ghana no no no I voted before in two previous elections yes but the name of your brand is Bioko Bioko in doing my research I realized that I thought okay listen you don't look back into history and see how does history how it sees you going to impact me in the future and you just go on living your life you are bound to make mistakes you learn from history so I thought let me go back into history and see what is how did cocoa come to house and impact with us we don't eat cocoa you know we eat plantain we grow plantain we grow cassava we eat cassava but we don't do cocoa cocoa is only for export why? palm oil we use palm oil we grow the palm nuts we use it but it's only cocoa and why not so in my research I grew up also knowing that cocoa beans were supposed to have started in Fernando Po so I did a lot of research on it and I thought okay in what way can I pay homage to the man who is credited with bringing commercial cocoa farm into Ghana Teta Kwashi I thought that the question would be a name that wouldn't cross over in terms of it's a bit wordy and I can say Teta Kwashi but how many other people who are not from Ghana can say Teta Kwashi so I thought okay what about paying homage to the place that he got the beans from because after all those beans the tree that he grew with are still supposed to be standing in the Teta Kwashi farms and then I realized that Fernando Po was a name given to an island of Bioko by the colonial mass, the Portuguese so I thought okay why not use Bioko it's a journey and we are all on a journey in this life so I thought okay the cocoa beans took a journey from Bioko to Accra Bioko in Equatoria again Bioko in Equatoria again so that's how we have Bioko and so for how many people have you employed in here we have about we have 6 full time and then when you are very busy sometimes we are getting about 2 more people to help us like during the busy seasons Christmas and Valentine it's a homemade chocolate right now do you plan making it bigger yes we plan on scaling up and we are going just scale up I would love to go in there and go check it out but I have some few questions which is kind of general I just want to know do you think Africa is the future I do I know it is the future and I believe very strongly that it's also the present I know it's the future because we have such a young a large young population who a lot of whom are here in Africa and a lot of whom are also out in the diaspora and these people are coming back and you know when I came I worked in a hotel and I saw over the years they changed in the demographics of the customers who came to the hotel initially it used to be just foreigners mostly not just mostly very slowly I saw Ghanians coming in to the hotel so enjoy our services not only the bedrooms but also the food and beverage so what I'm trying to say is as the population becomes more educated in terms of not just education but in terms of exposure which comes with the internet with all television whatever Africans and Ghanians young people especially are exposed more and they know that there's no limit on what you can do the limits are what we place on ourselves you know people talk about corruption people talk about nothing happens here grunt and rave and I'm telling you the future is here you know I'm trying to get my kids to come home I tell them you come and see they're in the US I just want you to help me I know your kids will be watching this video probably they are subscribers of one of my I hope so and you know we have a lot of Africans living in the diaspora and holding your kids if you have an advice for such people in terms of like I mean relocating what advice will you give to people like that I think you should look at what does a continent need right now what kind of skills do we need do you understand and work towards gaining those skills and come with a free mind please don't come expecting to earn the salaries that you earn there come expecting freedom come expecting to be able to walk down the street without feeling like I'm in the wrong neighborhood because of my skin color come expecting to fight I mean you fight everywhere to fight with civil servants to fight with doctors to fight with whatever but come with an open mind it's an exciting time to be particularly in Ghana I mean it's an exciting time to come back to Ghana can you take me around yes I will where we do most of our work we the only chocolate company actually that does these colored bombons which we use cocoa butter colors that we use for it so these are the so these are the this is what we do here we use we try to use as much local stuff as possible this is called zoe I don't know if you know zoe adakwa this adakwa you're going to have to taste some this adakwa this is passion fruit and mango this is toasted rice this is caramel this is lemon where is lime this is cocoa nibs and coffee and this is coffee so what we try to do is we try to use as little important stuff as possible we do add some this is puseko and this is almond but the cocoa nibs we roast the cocoa beans here and then we roast it in a small roaster and then we crack it and make the cocoa nibs so we add it to the coffee as well you know I don't want everything to sound so rosy so definitely there should be some kind of challenges that yes we do have challenges one of our biggest challenges is you know we are growing and we need to scale up and really need to move off these premises we would love to be somewhere a central closer to our customers I mean also it's quite central but we want to be even more central but the cost of rent is such a killer it's sort of as a small business person with the current thing give us a yes advance rent if you take that much money out of your you know your budget you're just not going to make it then also we have for us doing the bean to the bar yes we get the beans from Ghana but everything else that goes into there is imported sugar we buy it here but it's imported we should be able to have a sugar industry we do milk powder milk powder is imported because we don't have a dairy industry we should have a dairy industry we have cows we should be able to have a dairy industry you know there are so many people watching us right now I believe that they're looking forward to invest in something here in Africa open a sugar factory thank you is that all open a sugar factory do some get some cows do a dairy there's dairy, grow some take the what we call a brofonkathia in Ghana they're all months, they taste so sweet but it's not really being, it's not commercial fortunately the government has commercialized cashew and I think we can do the same thing with almonds there's this question that I really wanted to ask you but I don't know if you are willing to answer the I'm a cocoa farmer yeah you told me I did quite a few research and I realized that I can't even buy or use my own cocoa beans what are you getting your beans from so I mean legally you can't use your own beans legally because you have to sell the beans that you grow to the the cocoa market cocoa board because I think that's the government's way of also controlling the quality because you know Ghana is known for good cocoa beans quality cocoa beans so it's also it's way of controlling the quality and also protecting the farmers I can go to a farmer and cheat them I don't do that but I could so yes I produce cocoa myself and I feel like the government is cheating because I cannot be working so hard then the day I need to just sell your cocoa to me I'll be selling my cocoa to you thank you very much, it's a pleasure I'll give you a good price let me know how can people find you you can contact us www.buyokotreats.com we are on Instagram and on Facebook and our telephone number is in Ghana 0275 440 and 0558 8839322 and you can order online you can ship everywhere we started shipping to the US and we are working with one of the companies to look at their rates of shipping I have so many people out there who are willing to buy everything in the kitchen at this very moment so are you ready for us how many can you sell it to us as soon as possible because I know of the people we are ready come on we have chocolate bars as well we have 9 kinds of chocolate bars can we see yes those of you who went to boarding school in Ghana this is a gari and peanut butter gari and peanut butter we are supporting the cassava farm we are supporting the gari through the gari and then the peanut butter all this we get locally then we have caramel crunch and we have just plain milk chocolate and this is with 50% cocoa you know the health is in the cocoa not in the milk or the sugar so this is reduced chocolate reduced sugar made with skim milk and it's 50% cocoa so some people might who are used to some of the other flavors with a lot of milk and a lot of sugar might say I've had some customers comment why is it so dark I think because it's the cocoa cocoa is good for you so we have sugar free for the diabetics so we have 9 flavors and this is peppermint toffee peppermint toffee in dark chocolate so we make a lot of things yesterday somebody brought us some this is coffee the coffee is grown by a young man in a coupon here in Ghana I need to talk to you so you know what you got 9 different flavors I will do it I'm not even going to beg you I'm not here to do an advert I'm here to force this on you whether you like it or not it's time to support black owned businesses African owned businesses so if you are buying your chocolate from Switzerland or you are buying your chocolate from even nowadays China is making chocolate it's time to buy your chocolate from Ghana straight from the cocoa beans to the chocolate bar I'm going to see you online if you are going to buy chocolate from us I'm going to see you again bye