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Nigeria’s agribusiness sector holds significant potential to drive industrial growth, create jobs and boost export earnings, but the country’s continued reliance on raw commodity exports limits the value it captures from agricultural production.
In this exclusive interview with Nairametrics, the Group Managing Director of Johnvents Group, John Alamu spoke on the barriers to scaling agriculture processing in Nigeria.
He discussed how Johnvents Group has expanded from farmer aggregation into cocoa processing, food manufacturing and commodity trading, with combined annual cocoa processing capacity of 48,000 metric tonnes across its two Nigerian facilities.
Alamu also outlined the economic opportunities Nigeria could unlock by processing more agricultural produce locally, the challenges facing the sector and the company’s plans to increase cocoa processing capacity to 60,000 metric tonnes annually by 2030.
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Nairametrics: Tell us about Johnvents and the defining decisions that transformed the business into what it is today?
John Alamu: Johnvents began in 2014 with a practical goal: to help smallholder farmers access training, inputs, finance, and reliable markets. In 2016, we incorporated as Johnvents Consulting Limited and became a trading company, aggregating what farmers produced and selling it to offtakers.
Between 2016 and 2020, we moved into large-scale trading and built out farmer networks and aggregation hubs across Nigeria. That experience gave us a close understanding of the supply chain and of where value was being lost.
The defining shift came in 2021, when we decided to stop only moving commodities and start processing them. We acquired the 18,000-metric-tonne Coop Cocoa Factory, which became Johnvents Industries Limited, and commissioned our own cocoa factory in Ondo State.
We reached 5,000 tonnes processed within six months, and that same year we launched the Cocoa Farmers Empowerment Programme, with a goal of reaching 150,000 farmers by 2030.
In 2022, we earned Rainforest Alliance certification, introduced locally packaged pure cocoa powder, began exporting from Akure to Europe and North America, and founded our logistics arm, Haven Hauling. In 2023, we acquired Premium Cocoa Products in Ile-Oluji, Nigeria’s oldest cocoa processor, which increased our combined annual cocoa-processing capacity to 48,000 metric tonnes.
We also expanded our trading portfolio to more than 25 commodities and launched Johnvents Foods. In 2024 we established Johnvents DMCC in Dubai as our international trading hub and set up Noble-Eagle Industries, broadening our presence in edible oils, feed, water and seasoning. That was also the year we became Nigeria’s largest sesame exporter.
The thread connecting these milestones is our strategy: build from the farmer and the commodity, add value through processing and manufacturing, and connect African production to customers at home and internationally.
Nairametrics: Your business has expanded from agricultural commodity aggregation into cocoa processing, food manufacturing, logistics, edible oils, and other product categories. What is the strategic rationale behind this diversification, and which business segments currently contribute the most to revenue and profitability?
John Alamu: The rationale is simple: we want to own as much of the value chain as we can. We are strengthening the connection between agricultural supply, processing, manufacturing, and markets, with a clear focus on increasing value addition and building globally competitive businesses from Africa.
A business focused only on aggregation is exposed to price fluctuations and has limited influence over what happens further along the supply chain. By sourcing, processing, manufacturing, moving, and selling products, we can diversify our activities, strengthen our resilience, and retain more value in Nigeria.
Our diversification is deliberate: we want to build a connected agribusiness, not a collection of unrelated businesses. The model has three pillars: Agri & Agro-Allied, FMCG, and Logistics. The first connects us to farmers and commodity supply, the second turns agricultural produce into products for consumers and industry, and the third moves goods through the value chain.
Beyond cocoa, we participate in cashew, sesame, soybeans, legumes, edible nuts, rice, and rubber. Our downstream businesses produce consumer foods, edible oils, animal feed, seasoning and water, and our international trading presence connects us to global markets. Approximately 75% of Group revenue is linked to exports.
On which segments contribute most, I would distinguish between sales and profitability, because a high-revenue business can also carry higher working-capital, energy, or input costs. Cocoa processing and commodity trading are the established core of the Group, while FMCG and Logistics broaden our revenue base and create further value-adding opportunities. Our focus is profitable growth, cash discipline, and the contribution each business makes to the Group as a whole.
Nairametrics: Nigeria continues to export substantial volumes of agricultural commodities in raw form, losing opportunities to capture more value through domestic processing. How much is Johnvents contributing to reversing this trend, and what additional value, jobs and export earnings could Nigeria generate if more of its cocoa were processed locally?
John Alamu: We see local processing as central to the future of Nigerian agribusiness. Johnvents operates two cocoa-processing facilities in Akure and Ile-Oluji, with combined annual capacity of 48,000 metric tonnes.
They produce cocoa liquor, butter, cake and powder, which are ingredients for chocolate, confectionery, beverages and other products, and we export these derivatives to Europe, the United States and other markets.
We are turning Nigerian beans into higher-value products instead of shipping them out raw. Processing in Nigeria keeps more industrial activity, skills and value addition here before products enter international markets, and across the wider Group we employ more than 4,000 people.
The opportunity for Nigeria is considerable. In the first quarter of 2026, according to NBS data, superior-quality cocoa beans earned N596.9 billion, about 51% of all agricultural export earnings, while natural cocoa butter earned only N41.69 billion.
Industry estimates suggest that processed cocoa products are worth two to three times as much per tonne as raw beans. Every tonne processed locally therefore earns more in export revenue, supports more factory, logistics and distribution jobs, and builds more local supply chains than a tonne of beans shipped raw.
Nairametrics: Nigeria is grappling with food inflation, rising input costs, insecurity in farming communities, and climate-related disruptions. Which of these challenges poses the greatest threat to the growth of the agribusiness sector, and what practical interventions are needed to improve agricultural productivity?
John Alamu: These challenges are interconnected, and their relative importance varies by crop and location. For long-term productivity, climate change and declining farm resilience are major concerns because they affect yields, quality, and supply reliability.
Insecurity can prevent farmers from reaching farms or markets, while high input, energy, transport, and financing costs can make production and processing less viable. Food inflation is often the result of several of these pressures acting together.
Farmers need improved planting materials, extension services, climate-smart practices, finance and dependable markets. Supply chains need better rural infrastructure, storage, logistics and reliable energy.
Processors need a policy and financing environment that supports equipment investment and local value addition. Traceability and responsible sourcing also matter, because international buyers increasingly expect evidence of where commodities come from and how they are produced.
At Johnvents Group, our interventions are practical. We have trained more than 40,000 farmers in climate-smart and good agricultural practices, responsible sourcing, farm mapping, and traceability. We are working to distribute one million cocoa seedlings by 2027, and we have already distributed more than 300,000 cocoa seedlings since 2022.
Our work also includes child-labour monitoring and remediation systems in cocoa-growing communities, while our processing investments include more efficient energy systems. These steps cannot solve every challenge alone, but they strengthen the resilience and sustainability of the value chain. Government, financial institutions, research organisations, processors and farmers must work together to scale them.
Nairametrics: Despite Nigeria’s significant agricultural potential, the country still struggles to achieve large-scale industrial processing across several commodity value chains. What are the major barriers preventing local processors like you from operating at scale, and what needs to change to attract more private investment into agricultural processing?
John Alamu: One of the main barriers is financing. Agricultural processing is seasonal and working-capital heavy: a processor must buy large volumes of raw material in a short crop window and carry inventory through processing, shipping, and customer collection, which takes around 150 days at seasonal peak. Borrowing costs were very high until the recent rate cut, and long-tenor naira funding remains scarce.
Other barriers include the cost and reliability of energy, transport and port logistics, foreign-exchange volatility, and consistent raw-material quality and traceability. Building a factory alone does not solve these problems. The entire chain, from farmers and aggregation to utilities, logistics, and export markets, must work.
Nigeria can attract more investment through predictable policy implementation, infrastructure that lowers operating costs, finance suited to agricultural seasons and industrial asset lives, stronger extension and farmer-support systems, and efficient export processes.
Risk-sharing and development-finance partnerships can help mobilise longer-tenor capital, and our experience with IFC and BII shows the value of financing combined with technical support for capacity, energy efficiency and traceability. Investors need confidence that a well-run plant can secure raw materials, operate competitively and reach customers reliably.
Nairametrics: Looking ahead to 2030, what would success look like for Johnvents in terms of processing capacity, domestic market penetration, exports, farmer impact, and profitability? And what is the single biggest challenge that could prevent the company from achieving those ambitions?
John Alamu: By 2030, success for Johnvents Group would mean becoming a stronger, more integrated agribusiness: supporting over 150,000 cocoa farmers, expanding local processing and manufacturing, growing our consumer businesses, reaching more domestic and international customers, and doing so with disciplined, sustainable profitability.
We plan to distribute one million cocoa seedlings by 2027 and to increase combined annual cocoa-processing capacity to 60,000 metric tonnes. We also aim to connect more African agricultural production to markets and capture more value locally.
For the business, success means improving utilisation of existing assets, investing where demand justifies it, building trusted brands, strengthening traceability and maintaining the financial discipline needed to withstand commodity cycles.
One overarching challenge would be financing growth competitively while managing the volatility and working-capital demands of agricultural supply chains. Raw-material prices, energy, climate, and logistics all matter, but they become especially difficult when a business cannot access sufficient affordable capital at the right time.
Our response is to deepen farmer relationships, improve operational efficiency, diversify markets and products, and match investment to sustainable demand. We are ambitious about 2030, but we want resilient and profitable growth, not growth for its own sake.
