The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) has unveiled the launch of a Cocoa Centre, a new trading platform dedicated to the cocoa industry, reinforcing Dubai’s position as a global hub for agricultural commodities.
This initiative is part of DMCC’s comprehensive expansion strategy aimed at developing the agricultural and food commodity sectors, leveraging the successful cluster model that has significantly transformed global trading patterns for coffee and tea. Currently, 88 companies are operating within the centre in areas such as cocoa trading, chocolate production, and confectionery. The Cocoa Centre will integrate all these activities into a single platform that encompasses the entire value chain, from sourcing and processing to brand development, distribution, and facilitating access to necessary financing for businesses.
The Cocoa Centre is being established in partnership with Kumbi Cocoa, a company that prioritizes direct and fair relationships with farmer cooperatives, and Ribezzi Group, a diversified conglomerate based in Dubai that will lead the development and implementation of the project. The three parties are collaborating on a feasibility study to create an integrated infrastructure in Dubai capable of storing, trading, and processing cocoa beans into semi-finished products, including cocoa liquids, cocoa butter, and cocoa powder. This initiative aims to serve global markets, increase efficiency and transparency, and add greater value across all stages of the cocoa supply chain.
In line with the success attained by the Coffee and Tea Centres under DMCC, this new platform signifies a growing trend in the global agricultural commodities sector, where added value increasingly emerges from specialized and integrated platforms that combine logistics, processing, and capital provision. The Cocoa Centre will offer state-of-the-art infrastructure and services, including classification, storage, blending, brand development, and packaging, directly linked to trade financing solutions available to cocoa boards, cooperatives, and farmers through DMCC’s FinX platform. This aims to provide essential tools in a market characterized by price volatility and liquidity pressures.
Creating Value
Ahmad Bin Suleiman, the CEO and Executive Chairman of DMCC, stated, “Today’s cocoa trade is not limited to production; it revolves around how value is built, financed, and distributed across different links in the supply chain. Through the Cocoa Centre at DMCC, we are establishing a platform that addresses the requirements of this new reality. By bringing together producers, traders, manufacturers, and capital under one roof, we create an environment conducive to generating more added value close to production sources, while strengthening Dubai’s role as a global destination for agricultural commodity trade. This project represents a natural extension of our cluster model and a progressive step towards solidifying Dubai’s central position in global food and commodity flows.”
Kwadoo Boateng-Adjie, founder and CEO of Kumbi Cocoa, remarked: “Since our establishment, Kumbi Cocoa’s mission has been to build transparent and fair supply chains that directly link farmers to global markets. Today, we take pride in being a strategic partner of DMCC, supporting the development of infrastructure that benefits farmers while simultaneously providing high-quality, traceable cocoa to international markets.”
Mauro Ribezzi, founder of Ribezzi Group, noted, “The global cocoa market is evolving rapidly, and this initiative exemplifies a forward-thinking approach to developing commodity trade infrastructure. By integrating sourcing, logistics, trading, and processing operations across continents, the Cocoa Centre possesses the potential to set a new benchmark and a platform to stimulate growth in this sector.”
Globally, the cocoa market reached a value of approximately $16.6 billion in 2025, and it is projected to grow to $26.2 billion by 2035. During the same period, forecasts suggest that the premium chocolate sector, powered by single-origin products, innovative craftsmanship, and health-focused products, will rise from $31.9 billion in 2024 to $40.6 billion by 2030.
While Dubai’s role in cocoa trade is still emerging, it shows clear growth prospects. In 2023, the UAE imported raw cocoa beans valued at $17.3 million and cocoa and chocolate products amounting to $65.3 million. Its exports of raw cocoa beans reached $16.4 million, placing the UAE as the 28th largest cocoa exporter globally. Despite these figures being in the early stages, they reflect a burgeoning trade flow of raw materials at the top of the supply chain and processed products at the bottom, facilitated through Dubai.