The Cocoa Marketing Company has officially launched a Comprehensive 24-Hour Operational Framework built around three components, Offload 24, Load 24 and Export 24, aimed at improving efficiency, responsiveness and competitiveness across Ghana’s cocoa logistics and export chain.

The framework moves CMC beyond the limitations of the traditional workday to better align its operations with ports, shipping lines, haulers and other partners that already operate beyond conventional working hours, positioning the company’s round-the-clock ambitions within President John Mahama’s wider 24-Hour Economy agenda.

Offload 24 will enable Licensed Buying Companies to receive cocoa around the clock, a change intended to reduce truck queues and unnecessary delays at takeover centres.

Load 24 will support continuous supply of cocoa to local processing factories, allowing processors to make fuller use of available capacity rather than operating within the constraints of a single shift.

Export 24 extends inspection, stuffing, sealing, documentation and other export preparation activities beyond conventional hours, targeting faster movement of cocoa shipments out of the country.

Together, the three strands are designed to function as a continuous pipeline rather than three separate initiatives, moving cocoa from warehouse to factory, port and international market without the pauses that a conventional workday would otherwise impose at each stage.

More Than Longer Opening Hours

CMC framed the initiative as reaching beyond simply keeping facilities open at night. The company said the framework is designed to improve turnaround times, reduce idle capacity, accelerate exports, support employment through multiple shifts, and strengthen Ghana’s competitiveness in the global cocoa trade.

The company said increased operating hours would not come at the expense of safety, quality or the integrity of Ghana’s cocoa, and that operational expansion would be supported by corresponding improvements in infrastructure, security, surveillance, health facilities and other safeguards required to sustain continuous operations responsibly.

The framework sits within CMC’s contribution to Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development Programme, focused on stronger logistics integration, greater domestic processing and faster movement of cocoa through the value chain.

The launch follows months of preparation. CMC Managing Director Dr Wisdom Kofi Dogbey toured several cocoa takeover centres in late 2025 to assess operational readiness ahead of a shift to round-the-clock working, engaging directly with staff responsible for storing and handling the country’s cocoa.

At the time, he said the model would improve inventory management, reduce wastage and losses during peak seasons, and allow the company to respond more swiftly to market demand. He also tied the initiative to farmer welfare, arguing that streamlined operations would help ensure farmers receive timely payments through Licensed Buying Companies.

The 24-hour push follows a separate initiative CMC unveiled earlier in the year, Project Elevate, aimed at expanding local processing of cocoa beans and deepening the domestic value chain before beans leave the country.

As CMC’s commercial arm within the Ghana Cocoa Board structure, the company’s performance in marketing and selling Ghana’s beans directly shapes export earnings and the incomes of farmers, who receive 70 percent of the gross Free On Board price CMC’s sales generate.

Quote cards released alongside the launch captured the framing Dogbey used to introduce the framework, closing with a short declaration repeated across CMC’s messaging: Ghana is ready to work, Ghana is ready to export, Ghana is ready to compete, and CMC is ready to play its part.

Whether the framework delivers the turnaround and competitiveness gains CMC has attached to it will depend on execution across a chain involving multiple independent actors, ports, shipping lines and haulage operators among them, whose own scheduling and capacity will shape how much of the round-the-clock ambition translates into faster shipments.