Some of the patrons had gone for their fitness walk from Ayi Mensah to the Peduase Lodge and joined the health walk, which brought out the enduring spirit of participants, an attribute similar to vitality, which the consumption of cocoa provides.

The walk, which was aimed at creating awareness of locally produced cocoa products and helping the patrons to keep fit, started around 7 a.m. after a brief warm-up aerobics session and ended around 8:30 a.m.

On the theme: "Eat chocolate, stay healthy, grow Ghana", the health walk was part of activities marking this year’s National Chocolate Week.

It was organised under the auspices of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), in collaboration with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) and other partners.

Speaking with journalists after the walk, the Public Affairs Manager of COCOBOD, Fiifi Boafo, said the health walk was a nationwide activity meant to boost the consumption of cocoa and grow the country.

He explained that the walk was designed to create the needed awareness of the essence of consuming more cocoa products in order to benefit from its health and nutritional values.

Mr Boafo said different activities were being organised across the 16 regions as part of the 2023 National Chocolate Week.

He said the country had now grown its per capita consumption of cocoa products by 100 per cent from 0.5 kilogramme in 2017.

“Activities such as this health walk are part of the reason behind the growth seen in nearly seven years,” he said.

He said the government would continue to work closely with relevant stakeholders to sustain and further grow cocoa consumption levels in the coming years.

Scaling up consumption

The Chief Executive Officer of the GTA, Akwasi Agyeman, explained that the Akuapem Hill walk had, over the years, been an assembly ground for thousands of people from all walks of life and was, therefore, a strategic location to create top of the mind awareness of cocoa products.

“The just-ended health walk has been a good exercise and the numbers have been good because participants responded positively to the invitation,” he said.

He explained that the National Chocolate Week sought to encourage practitioners in the tourism and hospitality industry to start offering cocoa products at their facilities.

He added that the reason for the involvement of hoteliers and other players was to further help scale up the offering and consumption of cocoa products in the country.