Barry Callebaut Opens $33M Cocoa Facility in Indonesia

ZURICH and MAKASSAR, IndonesiaBarry Callebaut today inaugurated its new $33 million joint cocoa processing facility in Makassar to meet growing cocoa demand in Asia. The joint venture company P.T. Barry Callebaut Comextra Indonesiawas formed in November 2011. Barry Callebaut owns 60% and P.T. Comextra Majora 40% of the joint venture company.

The new 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 P.T Comextra Majora.

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. In addition to the newly built Makassar site, the company has four other cocoa and four chocolate factories in the region, which allows Barry Callebaut to produce very close to its customersboth local and global food manufacturers in Asia-Pacific.

It is expected that Asian demand for cocoa powder products will grow by 5% to 9% annually in the coming years; chocolate volume growth is forecast to increase by 4% to 6% in the same period. With 13% of the world crop, Indonesia is the worlds third-largest cocoa growing country.

The new facility in Makassar built jointly with our partner P.T. Comextra Majora opens new cocoa sourcing possibilities and further strengthens our overall manufacturing footprint in our Region Asia-Pacific," said Juergen Steinemann, CEO of Barry Callebaut. Together with earlier investments and the recently acquired cocoa factories from Petra Foods in Asia, we are able to offer the best factory structure and support in a region where demand for quality cocoa and chocolate products is growing rapidly."

Barry Callebaut is dedicated to maintaining and contributing to a sustainable cocoa supply chain. For this, Barry Callebaut is expanding its sustainability activities to include Indonesia. The company already started to roll out its global sustainability initiative Cocoa Horizons" in the region.

Barry Callebaut also established the Combat Grakindo Foundation together with P.T. Comextra Majora in 2012, a joint local sustainability initiative to provide training to cocoa farmers in Central Sulawesi.

In July 2013, Barry Callebaut inaugurated its new Cocoa Center of Excellence to promote advanced agricultural techniques in Côte dIvoire, the world's largest cocoa producing country. Based in Pacobo, Côte dIvoire , the new center is part of Barry Callebauts Cocoa Horizons project, which pledged 33.2 million for sustainability initiatives over 10 years beginning March 2012. To date, the company has invested approximately 800,000 in the Côte d'Ivoire center training facilities for farmers and a 30-hectare showcase farm" to demonstrate state-of-the-art intercropping techniques and yield enhancement practices to increase farm productivity.