Olam to invest in Cote D’Ivoire cocoa plant
18 August 2010 – Olam International, the integrated supply chain manager and processor of agricultural products and food ingredients, has announced that it will invest $43.5 million in Cote d’Ivoire to set up a greenfield cocoa processing facility in Abidjan as well as a primary processing and warehousing facility in San Pedro.
The cocoa processing plant will process approximately 60,000 metric tonnes of cocoa beans into cocoa liquor, butter and cake. It will be supplied with clean cocoa beans from Olam’s existing primary processing plant in Abidjan. The primary processing facility in San Pedro will be a modern drying, cleaning and sorting plant along with storage facilities.
Olam’s managing director and global head for cocoa, Gerry Manley, says, “Cote d’Ivoire is a key location for setting up our first, large greenfield cocoa processing plant as the country’s cocoa products are an important ingredient to our customers’ chocolate recipes.”
The cocoa processing plant is expected to be commissioned by the first quarter of 2012. By the end of its second year of production (end of financial year 2014), it is expected to produce 48,000 metric tonnes of cocoa products and achieve a turnover of approximately $175 million.
