Barry Callebaut and P.T. Comextra Majora Open Indonesia Cocoa Facility

Sep 3 2013 --- Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products, has celebrated the inauguration of its new, joint cocoa processing facility in Makassar. For this, Barry Callebaut created a joint venture with P.T. 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 P.T. Comextra Majora 40% of the joint venture company P.T. 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 tonnes, 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: 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.2

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.

Juergen Steinemann, CEO of Barry Callebaut, said: “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. 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.”

According to Jimmy Wisan, CEO of P.T. Comextra Majora and President Commissioner of the joint venture P.T. Barry Callebaut Comextra Indonesia, the partnership is a natural extension of the long-standing business relationship with Barry Callebaut. He commented: “Our businesses complement each other and the partnership will harness the strengths of both companies. Barry Callebaut will be responsible for the operations and will purchase the manufactured products while P.T. Comextra Majora will supply the new facility with cocoa beans under a long-term supply agreement.”

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.

Besides its own activities, Barry Callebaut 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.  Barry Callebaut is also a member of the Cocoa Sustainability Partnership (CSP), a public-private forum started in 2006 for stakeholders actively engaged in cocoa development initiatives in Indonesia.