Story
EMKAO produces premium quality, traceable and sustainable cocoa ingredients. We source our beans from villages in Cameroon, Equatorial Africa where we work with smallholder farmers to harvest the best quality of cocoa beans.
Our story dates back to 1892, when cacao was brought to Cameroon from the tropical regions of South America. Over a century later, Cameroon’s 5,000 small-scale farmers make the country the world’s fifth largest producer of cacao.
We are proud to be part of this legacy.
For generations, our family has been refining the art of growing, harvesting, and fermenting cocoa at Kotou Farm, located in the Méfou-et-Afamba region of Cameroon. As we perfected our process and reached the highest standards of sustainable and ethical cocoa production and we decided to share the rich, unique flavours of our cacao with North American chocolatiers.
When our founder and CEO, Ayissi, arrived in Canada in 2016, she harnessed her love of chocolate and marketing background to launch EMKAO Foods. EMKAO brings cocoa beans from Kotou Farm to Mission, BC, where they are processed into chocolate ingredients for customers seeking premium quality and directly traceable products.
Today, our teams in Cameroon and BC share a common vision of elevating communities – and chocolate – through traceable and sustainable products.