The staff and crew from the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) paid a visit to the Institute on July 18, 2023 for an interview with the Directors and staff of the institution. This visit included a tour of the Value Addition Research (VAR) Department and interview with the Director and Head of the Department, Dr. (Mrs.) Olayinka Jayeola, who took them around the department, while she spoke about the role of the department in carrying out various researches, developing new and usable products from the institute’s mandate crops and making sure that the products are available for industrialization. She role out the achievements of VAR, with the support of the Executive Director, which involves innovative production of over 25 products from the mandate crops which includes cashew wine, cocoa wine, kola wine, coffee wine, cocoa bread, choco garri, chocovita, the 3 in 1 ready to drink beverage, chocolate, cashew oil, cashew juice, cashew nuts, cashew meat, kola beverage, black and green tea, coffee beverage, cocoa balm, cocoa lotion, cocoa ‘abuwe’ scrubbing soap, fertilizer, animal feed and many more which are available for uptake. She also stated that the level of adoption of these products is fair, but hopes more individuals and companies will get in touch.
Dr. Jayeola also stated that cocoa has a lot of antioxidants that prevents cancer, diabetes and has many more health benefits which are infused into CRIN products. She further said “knowledge is unlimited, research is continuous, with funds availability, local demands beans will be as high as the export demands and we would be able to produce sufficient cocoa by-products that would reduce the import of by-products to Nigeria”.
During the tour they stopped by the Flavour Quality Laboratory (FQL) where they met with one the Scientist in charge of the Lab, Tomiwa Balogun. The flavour laboratory does flavour analysis on cocoa using a combination of different analysis carried out on the raw cocoa beans and cocoa liquor. These analysis tests the flavour content, special qualities, defect(s), and quality of the cocoa bean produced by the farmer. This is to guide and ensure that the farmer follows the right process to get premium quality cocoa bean. He took them through the process involved in the analysis. Mr. Tomiwa encouraged farmers to bring their cocoa beans to the Institute’s Flavour Quality Laboratory so they can be analysed thereby improving the quality of the Nigerian cocoa beans.