Ware Housing and Port Operation

Sustainable Cocoa Farmers Association uses warehousing and quality storage facilities in our production and the supply chains of our operations. For the purpose of delivery agriculture inputs to its members, SUCOFA has rented about eight (8) warehouse storage facilities situated in all the seven coca growing regions in Cameroon. The Agricultural inputs received from the suppliers mainly, Cocoa Processors and International Supports are stored in these warehouses for onward ditribution to members at their farm gates. The purpose of this is to ensure that fertilizers and agro-chemicals supplied to members are stored under safe climatic conditions and to enhance the timely distribution of the inputs to member farmers..

 

On the otherhand , Cocoa certification scheme requires that certified beans must be kept at designated warehouses to facilitate the process of traceability of certified cocoa beans to the warehouse level. For this purpose, SUCOFA-CocoaBoard has constructed a state of the art warehouses at three (4) operational areas namely, Meme-Kumba, Lebialem-Menji, Fako-Buea, Manu-Mamfe Central-Yaounde - all in the western Region and Central Region.

 

The warehouses have an office , store room and a sizeable meeting room which provides a platform for members to hold meetings and exchange experiences and ideas.  In addition,, they are furnished with modern wooden pallets, electronic weighing scales and warehouse module solution to ensure transparency and assurance of fair payment to members.

 

OPERATIONS

The warehousing and Port Operations of SUCOFA-CocoaBoard include;

• Receiving cocoa from Farmers Communities

• Quality Control and Grading

• Warehousing of Cocoa

• Evacuation of Cocoa

• Infestation and Storage of Ccocoa Beans

Recieving COCOA from Farmers

The Community Warehousing Department is solely responsible for taking over cocoa from Members Farmers. In carrying out its duties, the department ensures that consignments to be offloaded have the right requirements of good grade, category, weight and station marks. These checks are necessary to ensure that Cameroon's cocoa premium status is not compromised.

Warehousing of COCOA

Cocoa taken over from Community Farmers are carefully stacked in sheds in such away that the first-in-first-out system is upheld. Stack histories of every stack in a shed are prepared to facilitate periodic fumigating activities.

Evacuation of COCOA

The department plays an important role during evacuation since it determines where stock can be located and liaise with Labour Companies to load cocoa from the shed to evacuating destinations

Key Players

The department carries out duties with the help of the following organizations;

• Quality Control Company (They ensure quality)

• Labour Companies (They provide labour for Loading & offloading activities)

• Local Cocoa Processing Factories (They Purchase cocoa for domestic processing)

• Haulage Companies (They transport Cocoa to and from the Take-over Centres)

• Cameroon Ports Authority (They facilitate shipment of cocoa abroad)

• Shipping Lines (They facilitate shipment of cocoa abroad)

• Scale Mechanics (They carry out repair works on community warhouse scales)

• Standard board (they standardize weighing bridge and scales)