16 • Cocoa World • C&CI March 2012 GERMANY Cargill to invest in new facilities
Cargill has unveiled plans to invest close to €20 million in its newly acquired cocoa and chocolate facilities in Berlin, Germany. The investment will enable Cargill to upgrade, strengthen and expand its cocoa and chocolate capabilities in Germany in order to offer customers superior choice, quality and market reach. Cargill plans to upgrade both production sites – based in Lichtenrade and Reinickendorf in Berlin – which will increase the capacities of specific product lines and strengthen its ability to provide a high quality cocoa and chocolate portfolio. The expansion will also enable the efficient integration within Cargill’s global network and optimise product flows to customers.
"This investment highlights Cargill’s on-going commitment to helping our customers meet the growing consumer demand for chocolate particularly in Germany and Eastern Europe," said Jos De Loor, Managing Director, Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate. "By upgrading, expanding and integrating these two production sites into our wider cocoa and chocolate network, we are better placed to serve our customers and seamlessly provide them with the best quality product from the most appropriate site." The investment will create two state-of-the-art cocoa and chocolate facilities to serve customers in the
bakery, confectionery and ice-cream categories with a broad portfolio of chocolate, cocoa powder, cocoa liquor and cocoa butter.
EUROPE
Grinding figures turn bearish
The European Cocoa Association recently reported its fourth quarter 2011 quarterly grindings which, at 349,345 tonnes, were just 1.8 per cent higher year-on-year, against expectations of at least 5 per cent.
"This could be an indication that despite very attractively low cocoa bean prices last quarter, grinders were limited by a fragile demand outlook for chocolate demand in Europe," said Macquarie Bank. "With the large supply expected from West Africa this season, the market needs stronger demand to avoid another large stock carry-out."
WEST AFRICA UN funding for Liberian farmers
The United Nations rural development arm is to provide a US$24.9 million loan to Liberia to improve the West African country’s cocoa and coffee production in an effort to alleviate poverty among rural communities recovering from the effects of past conflicts. The funds from the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will finance a programme dubbed the ‘tree crop revitalisation support project’ in Liberia, where the development of agriculture is a national priority of the government. The project aims to increase the incomes of cocoa and coffee producers by helping them grow more, better quality cocoa, revitalize 50 per cent of existing plantations and repair 315km of rural roads in order to improve access to market centres. More than 15,000 smallholder cocoa and coffee farmers, half of them women, will benefit directly from the project. It is also intended to strengthen extension services to smallholder farmer cooperatives by the agriculture ministry.
The funds will be disbursed to the most vulnerable farming households in Lofa county in northern Liberia, where the highest number of smallholder cocoa and coffee producers live.
INDONESIA Ailing cocoa exporter to focus on Asia
The Jakarta Post reports that cocoa butter and powder firm PT Davomas Abadi is hoping to diversify into Asian markets and into China in order to counter declining sales in Europe and the US. "We are also studying the potential market in Japan and Korea," Davomas’s Corporate Secretary Hasiem Wily said. Mr Hasiem said that the Asian cocoa-product market was different from those in European and America. He said China used cocoa products in its pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, whilst Western countries were making chocolate or biscuits. "We see an increasing trend in cocoa powder prices, but a decline in cocoa butter," he said. Davomas has a total capacity to pro- duce 140,000 tons of cocoa powder and butter a year. However, Mr Hasiem said that the company’s utilization only reached 40 per cent of its total capacity.
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