Business Plan for Cocoa Bean Butter Manufacturing

What is a cocoa bean butter?
Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavor and aroma. Its melting point is just below human body temperature.

Uses of cocoa bean butter
Cocoa butter is a major ingredient in practically all types of chocolates (white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate). This application continues to dominate consumption of cocoa butter.
Pharmaceutical companies use cocoa butter’s physical properties extensively. As a nontoxic solid at room temperature that melts at body temperature, it is considered an ideal base for medicinal suppositories

Customer Analysis
The main user of cocoa bean butter are households, individuals, cosmetic manufacturers (such as Beautifully Scrumptious, Queen Helene, St. Ives), pharmaceutical companies.

Industry
The main producers of Cocoa butter in Nigeria are:

The Business Opportunity
Cocoa butter is becoming increasingly costly. Substitutes have been designed to use as alternatives. In the United States, 100% cocoa butter must be used for the product to be called chocolate. The EU requires that alternative fats not exceed 5% of the total fat content.
Substitutes include: coconut, palm, soybean, rapeseed, cottonseed and illipe oils; and shea butter, mango kernel fat and a mixture of mango kernel fat and palm oil, and PGPR.
This business plan provides the information needed to make decisions about starting a cocoa bean cream butter manufacturing plant. It is designed to attract investors to the business.