Africa

African coffee is brewed and celebrated worldwide for its rich and unique flavors. Our extensive sourcing network reaches smallholder farmers in Congo, Ivory Coast and Uganda, as well as estates in Tanzania and Zambia. Managed by our teams of expert agronomists and sustainability professionals, these farms supply specialty customers internationally with sustainably grown, traceable coffees.

Female farm workers ploughing crop field

Democratic Republic of Congo

Both arabica and robusta are traditional export crops for DRC and now specialty production is bringing new investment, interest and hope to the Kivu provinces – the main growing region. As the country’s largest coffee buyer and exporter, we offer high-quality fully washed coffee, alongside specialty honeys and naturals, and organic cascara, produced at our seven washing stations. A stronger focus on quality also rewards the farmers with higher premiums.

Smiling farm worker picking red coffee beans in the Republic of Congo

Ivory Coast

Ivory Coast is an important producer of full-bodied robusta. ofi has grown to become the country’s largest green coffee buyer and 4C certified exporter, benefitting the livelihoods of around 90,000 smallholders each year. Our state-of-the-art dry mill in Abidjan is equipped with modern machinery geared towards producing superior quality beans and customized grades for buyers.

Close up shot of red coffee beans on tree branch

Tanzania

This 2,000-hectare certified green arabica coffee estate is located in the mountainous Songea Rural District of Southern Tanzania along the Ruvuma River. Certified by Rainforest Alliance/UTZ and 4C, the estate employs many people from the local community and has invested in social infrastructure. We are proud to be the first business in Africa to have a site achieve the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard.

Uganda

Considered the birthplace of robusta, Uganda is home to what is thought to be one of the rarest examples of naturally occurring coffee trees anywhere in the world. Over a third of the country’s population depend on coffee to make a living, making it a product of vital economic and social significance. Our Sironko processing mill produces specialty grade, fully washed arabicas, sourced from the farmers spread across the high slopes of Mt Elgon.

Pile of red coffee beans with sky background

Zambia

The Rainforest Alliance/UTZ certified arabica estates are located in the stunning Mafinga Hills of Zambia’s Northern Province, favored for its microclimate, rich volcanic soil and rainfall. As well as improving production facilities and processes with an emphasis on quality, we’re investing in the communities beyond the estates to improve access to education and healthcare, and support smallholder farmers.

Female farm worker driving a tractor filled with red coffee beans

Read ofi news

Articles Jan 15, 2025

Andrew Brooks

Head of Cocoa Sustainability, ofi

UN World Day Against Child Labour 2021: Putting children first in cocoa

By Andrew Brooks, Head of Cocoa Sustainability, olam food ingredients (ofi)

This week, the world’s attention turns to a heavy burden that can damage a child’s Health and Education: child labour. In ofi's cocoa business, we are focused on solving this problem every day.

Most child labour in cocoa relates to children carrying out hazardous tasks on the family farm, distinct from the much rarer issue of forced labour, and has no one cause. Labour laws can be misunderstood, and schools might be located far away. Even if there is a school nearby, children may not have the documents they need to enrol. When combined with rural poverty, many parents think their child’s time is best spent helping on the farm. And now, these cocoa-growing communities are also battling a global health pandemic.

We’re working to tackle each of these challenges in turn. Under our Cocoa Compass sustainability ambition, we aim to completely eradicate child labour from our direct supply chain by 2030 and ensure farmers’ children can access the education they are entitled to. In 2020, we reached the critical milestone of rolling out child labour monitoring across 183,000 households in nine countries.

There is still a lot to do, and collaboration with our customers, national governments, and civil society is essential. For example, we recently asked the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to assess the extent to which cocoa farmers and their families have benefited from our sustainability programmes in Côte d’Ivoire, their perception and satisfaction with these interventions, and help to refine our approach further.

Using a due diligence methodology called Social Impact Assessment, the FLA collected extensive data and interviewed over 450 people from ten cocoa communities, including women and children. It found that of all our efforts to tackle child labour, the setting up of child labour monitoring and remediation and enabling access to education are the most advanced and have the most significant impact.

It also revealed that over two-thirds of those interviewed think child labour is on the decline in their community, and 80% believe that the interventions by ofi and our partners are contributing to protecting children.

There are areas for improvement. The FLA suggested we provide additional support to help farmers access affordable labour. And ensure greater follow-up with Village Savings and Loans Associations to maximise their ability to promote child protection.

We know that combining our efforts through multi-stakeholder partnerships, championed by local and regional governments, and supported by international finance institutions, is the best way to create the kind of long-term systemic change needed to reach universal school attendance

and graduation for children in cocoa communities.

This World Day Against Child Labour reminds us that if we want to put children first in cocoa, we must be open to testing new approaches and adapting our efforts based on what works best. The future of a cocoa generation is at stake if we don’t.

Articles Nov 14, 2024

Madeline Bills

Cocoa Innovation Manager at ofi

The sweet treats and trends winning hearts this Valentine’s Day

Author | Madeline Bills | Cocoa Innovation Manager at ofi

Chocolate has long been synonymous with Valentine’s Day, with sweet treats a classic way to celebrate the season of love.

But Valentine’s Day is evolving, with Gen Z and Millennials redefining traditions. Many consumers are choosing to celebrate this day with friends and family members, as well as significant others. In 2023, 40% of Gen Z and 20% of Millennials said they were planning to buy their friends a Valentine’s gift.^[1] And what better way to do so than with cocoa?

As consumers change the way they celebrate Valentine’s Day – and who they celebrate with – there is an opportunity for manufacturers to develop new products. From introducing more exotic flavors in confectionery to creating more experiential formats and expanding into new categories, we’re seeing companies inventing new ways for consumers to celebrate the season of love with those who matter most to them. At ofi we explore the top chocolate, confectionery and bakery trends shaping Valentine’s Day 2024 and how manufacturers can develop new offerings to win the hearts of consumers.

^[1] Actually, Lots of Gen Z Would Rather Spend Valentine’s Day with Their Friends - YPulse

Press Release Sep 25, 2024

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ofi’s net-zero ambition recognized at UK’s largest sustainable business awards

A new carbon monitoring tool developed by leading food ingredients supplier ofi and Google geo-spatial partner NGIS, has been recognized in the “Net-Zero Innovation of the Year” category at this year’s Edie awards, which celebrate sustainability leadership.

The tool is designed to measure carbon gains and losses across supply chains. It uses satellite imagery and machine learning to track changes in forest cover and carbon stocks at a granular level - down to the individual farm¹. This data is helping ofi to identify areas at risk of deforestation and prioritize conservation efforts on cashew, cocoa and coffee suppliers’ farms and in sourcing landscapes.

Climate Action Manager at ofi, Dr Pedro Lafargue said: “We are delighted to be recognized for our innovative solution that is helping us monitor and measure GHG emissions and progress towards net-zero goals. Part of this is about driving transformational change in strategic landscapes which means keeping growing and retaining more trees on and around farms.

“Planting more trees is one of the ways to move towards net-zero, but carbon sequestration potential is highly dependent on tree species and farm typology. The tool allows us to assess the optimum level of planting for different farmers and farms so we can create more efficient agroforestry programs that maximize both yields and carbon storage.”

ofi’s customers, who are some of the world’s largest food retailers and manufacturers, can access results of the data-driven sequestration efforts in their joint supply chains via performance metrics on ofi’s sustainability management system AtSource. These insights can help them monitor and reduce their climate risk and meet science-based targets, as well as prepare for compliance with new EU rules and disclosures in relation to nature and climate risks.

The move by ofi to take carbon stock monitoring from a manual, desktop-based process to an integrated pipeline which leverages cloud computing, is allowing ofi to progressively scale this analysis across multiple commodities and regions – covering over 950,000 farms so far.

But Lafargue says that there’s a role for industry partners to play to scale up the innovation and progress towards net-zero at scale: “While the tool can help our customers quantify the ecosystem services provided to supply their ingredients and invest efficiently in better farming systems, we need them to recognize the efforts made by farmers to plant trees and maintain agroforestry systems with financial incentives, like annual premiums, to scale up these efforts over the long-term.”

Looking ahead, there is potential to take the tool beyond ofi supply chains to quantify carbon stocks and removals across entire production landscapes to provide better data for the industry on land use change and carbon removals.

ofi was also a finalist in the Circular Economy of the Year award for using residual cocoa shells to fuel its cocoa factories², where it produces its premium cocoa ingredients deZaan. The circular biomass boilers will reduce natural gas usage and CO₂ emissions at ofi’s Koog aan deZaan facility in the Netherlands by 50% and in Mannheim, Germany, where it is believed to be the first cocoa shell boiler of its kind in the country, it will save approximately 8,000 tons of CO₂ annually.

Discover much more about what ofi has to offer at ofi.com

Notes to Editors

¹ The Carbon Sequestration Monitoring Tool combines data from ofi polygon-mapped farms and satellite data with machine learning techniques to build models in Google Earth Engine that calculate the total aboveground biomass (AGB) - vegetation above the soil, such as stumps, trees, and foliage and how much carbon is present in each plot.

² https://www.ofi.com/news-and-events/press-release/olam-food-ingredients-turns-cocoa-shells-into-power-to-fuel-factory.html