Cargill, Incorporated, a US-based producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services, has started construction work on a $100 million cocoa processing facility in Gresik, in the East-Java region of Indonesia.
The facility will process approximately 70,000 metric tonnes of cocoa beans into a broad range of products for customers in the Asian market. The products will include high quality cocoa liquor and butter, as well as Cargill’s premium quality Gerkens cocoa powders.
The new facility, which is expected to be operational by mid-2014, will be Cargill’s first cocoa processing plant in Asia. Cargill stated that the new facility is to meet the demand amongst customers for cocoa products and to encourage the development of the Asian cocoa sector.
Cargill will create approximately 200 new jobs in Indonesia, as well as additional positions in its existing R&D application centers in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and in the company’s commercial network.
According to Cargill, the new facility and expanded sourcing operations in Indonesia will complement the company’s network of cocoa sourcing and processing facilities located in Western Europe, Vietnam, Cameroon, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil and the US.