MAKASSAR (Yosefardi) – Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products, on Tuesday (Sep 3) celebrated the inauguration of its new, joint cocoa processing facility in Makassar.
For this, Barry Callebaut created a joint venture with PT Comextra Majora, a diversified soft commodities trader and a leading exporter of cocoa from Indonesia as well as a long-standing business partner of Barry Callebaut, as announced in November 2011.
Barry Callebaut owns 60%, and PT Comextra Majora 40% of the joint venture company PT Barry Callebaut Comextra Indonesia. The USD 33 million (CHF 31 million / EUR 25 million) cocoa factory in Makassar will have an initial annual grinding capacity of 30,000 tons, which is supported by a long-term bean supply agreement with PT Comextra Majora.
Reinforced manufacturing footprint, closer to customers Following the recent acquisition of the cocoa business from Singapore-based Petra Foods, Barry Callebaut is further enhancing its manufacturing footprint in fast-growing Asian markets.
Besides the newly built Makassar site, the company has 4 other cocoa and 4 chocolate factories in the region. With this network Barry Callebaut is able to produce very close to its customers – both local and global food manufacturers in Asia-Pacific.
As Asian economies grow, demand for high quality cocoa and chocolate products also increases. It is expected that Asian demand for cocoa powder products will grow by 5-9% annually in the coming years; chocolate volume growth is forecast to increase by 4-6% in the same period – much higher than the respective growth rates in other parts of the world.
With 13% of the world crop, Indonesia is the world’s third largest cocoa growing country. The new factory in Makassar is ideally located on Sulawesi Island, where most Indonesian beans are grown, thus reducing logistics costs.