Cargill Overcomes EC Competition Investigation, Completes ADM Acquisition

The acquisition underlines Cargill’s commitment to meeting customer needs and constitutes a milestone for its chocolate growth strategy, strengthening its position as a leading player in the cocoa and chocolate industry.

The combined business provides Cargill with enhanced capabilities and product ranges to deliver a broad portfolio of products that support the long-term needs of existing and new customers. Cargill’s cocoa and chocolate business now operates globally with 27 sites in 11 countries with over 3.000 employees and serves customer needs worldwide with a distinctive range of innovative and high quality cocoa and chocolate products, tailor-made for confectionery, bakery, dairy, and other applications.

Louis de Schorlemer, Cargill’s EMEA Corporate Communications Manager, told FoodIngredientsFirst: “Cargill is focused on both cocoa and chocolate as one of its strategic core businesses, and is committed to investing for its long-term growth and success. We intend to build on ADM’s customer focus, depth of technical capability and its agility to serve the North American and European markets and position it for greater success as part of our chocolate capability. We will work together to design the most appropriate structure to meet and exceed the needs of our customers.”

Addressing the European Commission’s conditional clearance, Cargill has agreed to divest ADM’s industrial chocolate production facility in Mannheim, Germany. The facility is kept as a separate entity with its own interim management until transferred to a prospective buyer. Chocolate production onsite and service to customers continues normally.

Jos de Loor, president of Cargill’s cocoa and chocolate business EMEA and Asia, said: “Along with our access to the global cocoa supply chain and an enhanced technology base, we will be able to improve the delivery of new applications to our customers. We are seriously committed to help our customers grow and are excited to begin our new journey.”

“Bringing together the talents and expertise of our two organizations will enable us to have a broader market reach and an even better product and service capability,” comments Bryan Wurscher, president Cargill Cocoa and Chocolate North America. “By understanding and responding to customers’ needs we will be able to offer them distinctive value, which in turn will help create growth opportunities for our customers and for our business, as we increase the scale and focus of our operations.”

ADM’s chief executive Juan Luciano also commented on the sale: “We are continuing to create shareholder value, whether through profitable growth - such as the recent expansion of our port network and the addition to our corn footprint in Europe - or by divesting businesses for which we don’t see a long-term path toward achieving acceptable returns,” he said.

“I am proud of the team that identified and delivered on this sale and others like it - including the proposed sale of our cocoa business - which are helping to ensure that we continue to drive results for our shareholders and our company.”

By Kelly Worgan