JohnVents Group is reworking Nigeria’s cocoa wealth by way of native processing, client merchandise and supply-chain investments, writes Sunday Ehigiator, who not too long ago visited the corporate’s factories throughout Ondo State.
The very first thing that caught my consideration wasn’t a manufacturing facility chimney, tons of cocoa beans, or the hum of commercial equipment. It was the sound of drums and footsteps hopping in rhythmic sync.
At Akure Airport, in Ondo State, our arrival from Lagos was greeted by a troupe of cultural dancers whose energetic efficiency provided a distinctly Nigerian welcome to a journey that will problem my understanding of what native manufacturing may appear to be when ambition meets funding.
There we have been: journalists from totally different media homes, influencers, entertainers and different visitors, introduced collectively for a three-day tour of JohnVents Group’s manufacturing amenities. Among the acquainted faces have been common skit maker Layi Wasabi; influencer Eniola; Nollywood Actors Odunlade Adekola and Stanley Eze, who additionally serves as a JohnVents ambassador.
We had come to see factories. What awaited us was a a lot bigger story about farmers, sustainability, industrialisation, worldwide finance, client merchandise and the battle to retain extra of the worth generated by Nigeria’s agricultural wealth.
Yet, because the convoy pulled away from the airport, I didn’t know simply how a lot floor we might cowl, what number of merchandise we might encounter or how dramatically the expertise would shift my perspective on a Nigerian agribusiness whose ambitions now stretch throughout continents.
Our first main vacation spot was JohnVents Premium Cocoa Products Industry Limited (PCPIL), in Ile-Oluji, the place a tightly coordinated safety escort accompanied our motion. The reception get together, led by the corporate’s founder and the Group Managing Director of Capitalsage Holdings, John Alamu, and members of his administration group, welcomed us into an industrial surroundings whose significance turned clearer throughout each passing hour.
Behind the safety preparations, company introductions and thoroughly deliberate itinerary lay an intriguing query: how does a enterprise that started by serving to farmers discover inputs and markets evolve into a gaggle processing agricultural commodities, manufacturing client items and exporting to greater than 30 nations? The reply, I’d uncover, was written not solely within the firm’s factories but in addition in its choices about what Nigeria ought to do with the assets it already possesses.
The journey begins with a farmer.
To perceive JohnVents, one should journey again to 2014, lengthy earlier than the factories, worldwide financing agreements and increasing client manufacturers. Alamu was then working in monitoring and analysis on the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). His expertise uncovered him to a recurring downside confronting smallholder farmers: many may produce crops however lacked entry to agricultural inputs, finance and reliable consumers.
Rather than stay an observer, he started supporting farmers informally, serving to them acquire inputs and join their harvests to markets. The enterprise was integrated in 2016, initially working by way of agricultural buying and selling and aggregation.
Looking again, Alamu identifies the transfer from buying and selling commodities to processing them as one of many defining choices within the firm’s evolution. “Trading connects farmers to markets, but processing allows us to retain more value locally,” he defined.
In 2021, JohnVents acquired an 18,000-metric-tonne cocoa processing facility in Akure. Within six months, the manufacturing facility had processed 5,000 metric tonnes of cocoa, marking the corporate’s transition from shifting agricultural commodities to reworking them into industrial components.
Two years later, it acquired PCPIL in Ile-Oluji, a longtime cocoa-processing facility with an put in annual capability of 30,000 metric tonnes.
The acquisition was greater than an enlargement of manufacturing capability. It represented an try to revive an present industrial asset, restore manufacturing exercise and create alternatives round a facility that had been working under its put in capability.
“We wanted more of the cocoa grown here to become products that Nigerians can buy and enjoy here,” Alamu mentioned of the corporate’s subsequent transfer into client manufacturing.
That ambition turned extra seen with the institution of JohnVents Foods in 2023, bringing cocoa powders, chocolate drinks, cereals and confectionery merchandise into the corporate’s rising portfolio.
From its beginnings in farmer assist, JohnVents had begun assembling the parts of a vertically built-in agribusiness: sourcing, processing, manufacturing, logistics and distribution.
The distinction issues. A rustic might develop priceless crops and export hundreds of thousands of tonnes of agricultural commodities, but give up a lot of the manufacturing earnings, industrial employment and consumer-market alternative to nations that course of these commodities. However, JohnVents’ proposition is that Nigeria can seize extra of that worth at residence.
Inside the cocoa manufacturing facility
At Ile-Oluji, the size of the operation introduced that proposition into sharper focus.
The PCPIL facility, one in all Nigeria’s established cocoa-processing crops, varieties a part of JohnVents’ mixed cocoa-processing community alongside its Akure manufacturing facility. Together, the amenities have a reported put in annual capability of 48,000 metric tonnes, in accordance to the corporate’s administration.
Here, cocoa beans are remodeled into cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, cocoa cake and cocoa powder, components that offer industrial prospects and meals producers in worldwide markets. The course of is a reminder that the brown powder utilized in a cup of chocolate drink, the butter utilized in chocolate manufacturing and the components that finally discover their approach into confectionery start with an agricultural crop cultivated by farmers.
But the journey from bean to completed product entails significantly greater than equipment.
Raw supplies should meet high quality necessities. Production should be managed. Finished merchandise should fulfill prospects’ specs. Storage, packaging, transportation and export documentation should work collectively. And more and more, producers should exhibit the place their uncooked supplies originated and whether or not they have been produced responsibly.
This is the place JohnVents’ investments in processing capability intersect with its broader sustainability and traceability commitments.
Alamu disclosed that the corporate processed 31,621 metric tonnes of cocoa in 2025 and an additional 19,806 metric tonnes within the first half of 2026. He mentioned reported capability utilisation elevated from 66 per cent in 2025 to 82 per cent within the first half of 2026.
The figures counsel that the corporate’s problem is not merely buying factories. It should maintain them equipped, productive and aggressive in an surroundings characterised by risky commodity costs, costly vitality and foreign-exchange uncertainty.
“The objective is not simply to have capacity on paper; it is to keep the plants supplied, operating efficiently and producing to the standards our customers require,” Alamu mentioned.
The implications lengthen past the manufacturing facility gates. Higher processing volumes can improve demand for regionally sourced cocoa, assist agricultural provide networks and create work throughout manufacturing, high quality assurance, laboratory testing, warehousing and logistics.
However, industrial capability alone can’t assure these outcomes. Reliable raw-material provides, affected person capital, expert personnel, reliable infrastructure and entry to markets stay important.
The cash behind the equipment
The scale of commercial funding required to compete internationally raises one other query: the place does the capital come from?
For JohnVents, partnerships with worldwide development-finance establishments have develop into an essential a part of the reply.
In 2024, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, introduced a $23.3 million financing bundle for JohnVents Industries. The funding helps an enlargement programme on the Akure operation, together with plans to improve processing capability to as a lot as 120 metric tonnes per day, enhance energy infrastructure, purchase automobiles and supply working capital.
The bundle features a naira-denominated part, an essential consideration for a producer whose working bills and parts of its income are generated in native foreign money. The firm additionally acquired advisory assist centered on traceability, digital techniques, meals security, farmer cooperative management and girls’s participation in agricultural worth chains.
In 2025, British International Investment (BII), the United Kingdom’s development-finance establishment, introduced a $40.5 million funding to assist the enlargement of PCPIL in Ile-Oluji.
The goal is to assist the power improve manufacturing from roughly 13,000 metric tonnes yearly in the direction of its put in capability of 30,000 metric tonnes, whereas strengthening traceability and accountable sourcing.
Alamu nonetheless believes Nigeria wants extra inexpensive, long-term financing in naira to unlock the potential of agro-processing. He additionally identifies dependable electrical energy and gasoline, higher rural roads, accredited testing laboratories, storage amenities, improved ports and sustained funding in farming as priorities. Private corporations, he argued, can put money into particular person factories, however broader infrastructure and coordinated public coverage are needed to make your complete agricultural financial system aggressive.
From manufacturing facility flooring to breakfast tables
If the cocoa-processing amenities reveal the commercial coronary heart of JohnVents, its client manufacturers supply a glimpse of the corporate’s try to carry that funding into bizarre Nigerian properties.
This turned some of the attention-grabbing dimensions of the tour: the popularity that the agricultural worth chain doesn’t finish when cocoa beans go away the farm or when cocoa butter is loaded for export. JohnVents Foods produces merchandise together with Oluji Pure Cocoa Powder, JohnVents Pure Cocoa Powder, JohnVents 3-in-1 Chocolate Drinks, Myco 3-in-1 and JohnVents milk and darkish chocolate bars. Its portfolio additionally consists of JohnVents Choco Pops and Choco Cubes.
Through Noble-Eagle Industries, the group has prolonged its actions into edible oils, seasoning cubes, bottled water and animal feed. Its merchandise embody NEO soya oil, NEO vegetable oil, NEO seasoning cubes and Fontis bottled water, whereas NE Feeds serves poultry and livestock farmers.
The range is critical as a result of it connects a number of elements of agricultural manufacturing. Oilseed processing, for instance, produces edible oils whereas producing by-products that can be utilized in animal-feed manufacturing.
This method permits the corporate to pursue alternatives throughout totally different markets whereas making extra productive use of agricultural uncooked supplies. Yet getting into the Nigerian client market comes with its personal problem: established family manufacturers already take pleasure in years of familiarity and client loyalty.
Alamu acknowledges that belief can’t be demanded just because a product is regionally manufactured.
“We respect the manufacturers which have earned a spot on Nigerian breakfast tables over time. We know that belief is constructed over time by way of constant high quality, worth for cash, and the power to ship on guarantees.
“We do not expect consumers to trust us simply because we ask them to. We intend to earn their confidence through product quality, consistency, and the value we bring to their homes.”
The firm says it’s constructing its portfolio round totally different product codecs and worth factors, together with the Myco vary, whereas working to broaden distribution past main cities.
That is a crucial distinction in a market the place the price of meals, family buying energy and distribution decide whether or not a product can transfer past grocery store cabinets into on a regular basis consumption.
For native manufacturing to develop into a significant financial proposition, Nigerians should not solely see merchandise carrying Nigerian names; they need to additionally discover them accessible, reliable, wholesome and value their cash.
JohnVents’ long-term alternative will subsequently rely upon its skill to convert industrial funding into merchandise that customers repeatedly select, relatively than merely admire as symbols of home manufacturing.
A enterprise past cocoa
By the second day, the scope of the corporate’s ambition had develop into much more obvious. The itinerary took us from Akure in the direction of Owo and Idanre, an extended journey, I need to say, with visits to Noble-Eagle Industries, Haven Hauling and the JohnVents Foods facility in Idanre spanning a cumulative eight hours.
At Noble-Eagle, the corporate’s actions prolonged past cocoa into edible oils, animal feed and different client merchandise. Its sesame operations contain cleansing and hulling, whereas its cashew enterprise processes uncooked nuts into kernels by way of operations in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire.
The wider buying and selling portfolio consists of legumes, pulses, peanuts and edible nuts, together with almonds and pistachios.
These commodities serve totally different markets and prospects, however the underlying technique stays constant: determine alternatives to add worth, develop the capabilities wanted to course of agricultural merchandise and join manufacturing to reliable consumers.
The logistics part is equally essential. Haven Hauling, established in 2022, helps the motion of uncooked supplies and completed merchandise between sourcing areas, warehouses, factories and prospects. The firm boasts a fleet of greater than 100 vans.
The distinction between sourcing a commodity and delivering it effectively can decide whether or not a producing operation stays aggressive. Agricultural merchandise should journey from producing communities to processing amenities, typically throughout troublesome highway networks, earlier than making their approach to home or worldwide prospects.
Without dependable logistics, even an environment friendly manufacturing facility can face delays, increased prices and disruptions to manufacturing. By connecting procurement, processing and transportation, JohnVents is making an attempt to train larger management over the chain that hyperlinks the farmer to the ultimate market.
The firm experiences working 10 factories and 9 enterprise models, with exports reaching greater than 30 nations. Its ambitions lengthen throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East and different worldwide markets.
This is a broader endeavor than a cocoa-export enterprise. It is an try to set up an built-in agribusiness platform able to working throughout a number of commodities, markets and phases of manufacturing.
The human story behind the numbers
Yet, for all of the emphasis on factories, capability and exports, one of many extra consequential questions is what such enlargement means for the individuals who develop the crops.
Alamu’s unique expertise at IITA stays central to the corporate’s narrative. He argues that farmers can’t be handled merely as suppliers of uncooked supplies whereas the advantages of commercial development accumulate elsewhere.
The firm says it really works with greater than 40,000 farmer companions throughout its sourcing community and has set a goal of supporting 150,000 farmers throughout 300,000 hectares by 2030.
Its initiatives embody seedling distribution, agricultural coaching, farm mapping, traceability and assist for climate-smart practices.
According to the corporate’s account, greater than 400,000 cocoa and shade-tree seedlings have been distributed for the reason that programme started in 2022. Its sustainability reporting additionally describes the screening of greater than 50,000 farms towards protected areas and forests, in addition to the verification of roughly 122,916 hectares as deforestation-free.
These programmes deal with a central stress in agricultural industrialisation: factories want reliable provides of high-quality crops, however farmers want the assets and data to produce them sustainably. The relationship should work in each instructions.
JohnVents additionally experiences initiatives extending past farm productiveness. In reality, in Owo, upon visiting its cashew processing manufacturing facility, part of the manufacturing facility was devoted to handbook processing of cashew nuts, with the ladies numbering over 500, being paid in accordance to the amount of nuts they’ll manually produce every day, as a part of its ladies’s empowerment programme.
The programme additionally gives coaching in soap-making, entrepreneurship and monetary literacy. Its group programmes embody academic outreach, faculty infrastructure assist, solar-powered boreholes and youth engagement by way of sporting actions.
The firm’s child-labour monitoring and remediation programme is one other part of its responsible-sourcing agenda. Its sustainability disclosures describe engagement with households and communities to determine dangers, assist remediation and enhance kids’s entry to schooling.
Such initiatives are essential, however their final significance lies of their measurable and sustained impression. The distribution of seedlings, supply of coaching and development of group amenities are helpful beginning factors; long-term enhancements in farmers’ incomes, kids’s welfare, schooling and group resilience are the outcomes that matter.
For Alamu, the target is to be sure that the communities supporting the enterprise additionally profit from its development.
“Our story began with helping farmers access inputs and markets. As we scale, that purpose remains relevant: if farmers and the communities around our operations do not prosper, the factories cannot prosper sustainably either,” he mentioned.
The environmental take a look at
Industrial enlargement additionally brings environmental obligations that can not be separated from business development.
Cocoa processing requires vitality, water and transport, whereas agricultural sourcing more and more calls for proof that manufacturing doesn’t contribute to deforestation or unacceptable labour practices.
JohnVents says it’s strengthening farm-to-warehouse traceability, deploying satellite tv for pc monitoring to assess deforestation dangers and dealing in the direction of its goal of creating all its cocoa traceable by 2027, with not less than 90 per cent licensed underneath its acknowledged funding commitments.
Its sustainability report information roughly 19.29 million kilogrammes of carbon dioxide equal in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and identifies renewable and lower-carbon sources as accounting for about 39.4 per cent of vitality throughout the reporting interval.
The firm can also be pursuing a transition from diesel technology and wood-fired boilers in the direction of pure gasoline at its Akure operation, an effort meant to enhance vitality effectivity and scale back emissions.
Natural gasoline just isn’t emissions-free, however the proposed shift illustrates the troublesome choices dealing with producers in search of to stability operational prices, vitality reliability and environmental efficiency.
Alamu acknowledged that compliance necessities could be costly, significantly for smallholders with restricted land documentation and insufficient entry to extension providers. Certification premiums, he added, don’t at all times attain farmers transparently or persistently.
Nigeria’s skill to construct credible traceability techniques, enhance farm-level productiveness and supply accessible testing infrastructure will subsequently have an effect on not solely particular person companies but in addition the nation’s wider agricultural export prospects.
Sustainability, on this context, is each an environmental duty and a situation of continued entry to demanding markets.
What Nigeria can study from the JohnVents
By the third day of the tour, because the programme moved in the direction of its conclusion with an interview assembly with Alamu, the journey had revealed an essential distinction between possessing agricultural assets and constructing an agricultural financial system.
Nigeria is richly endowed with crops and farming communities. But the financial advantages of these assets rely considerably on what occurs after harvest.
When uncooked commodities are exported with out substantial processing, alternatives for manufacturing employment, product improvement, packaging, logistics and different supporting industries could also be captured elsewhere.
Processing agricultural merchandise regionally doesn’t remove each financial problem. It requires capital, infrastructure, technical experience, environment friendly regulation and markets able to absorbing manufacturing. Nor does it mechanically assure cheaper client merchandise or increased farmer incomes.
Nevertheless, the try to develop an built-in worth chain presents a sensible illustration of how personal funding can contribute to home manufacturing.
JohnVents’ reported 48,000-metric-tonne annual cocoa-processing capability, its partnerships with IFC and BII, its rising portfolio of meals merchandise and its community of agricultural suppliers present an image of a enterprise in search of to transfer past commodity buying and selling into extra advanced industrial actions.
The broader coverage lesson is equally clear. If Nigeria desires extra companies to comply with this path, it should deal with the price of capital, vitality reliability, rural infrastructure, agricultural extension and the techniques required to meet worldwide high quality and traceability requirements.
These aren’t challenges any single firm can remedy alone. Government, processors, farmers, analysis establishments and development-finance companions should work collectively to create situations during which native processing turns into commercially viable, and farmers can share within the ensuing worth.
Beyond the manufacturing facility gates
As I mirrored on the three-day journey, I returned to the picture with which it started: the cultural dancers welcoming us at Akure Airport.
Their efficiency was a celebration of place and id, however the journey that adopted provided one other mind-set about Nigerian id; not merely as one thing expressed by way of tradition, but in addition by way of the merchandise a rustic can manufacture, the companies it will possibly construct and the worth it will possibly retain from its personal assets.
At JohnVents, the story begins with a farmer who wants inputs and a reliable purchaser. It strikes by way of aggregation centres and factories, the place agricultural commodities are remodeled into industrial components. It continues by way of logistics networks and client manufacturers, finally reaching households and worldwide markets.
JohnVents has assembled lots of the parts wanted to pursue that imaginative and prescient, from processing amenities and client manufacturers to worldwide partnerships and farmer programmes. Its subsequent problem is to flip these parts right into a sturdy mannequin of aggressive, accountable development.
After three days amongst JohnVents’ factories, merchandise and completely happy individuals, one conclusion stood out: the gap between a cocoa farm and a chocolate drink just isn’t merely a matter of processing. It is the gap between having a priceless useful resource and constructing an business round it. And that distance is the place a lot of Nigeria’s subsequent financial alternative might lie.
