A tailored solution for your next creation

Consumers are increasingly seeking natural, nutritious, sustainable—and delicious—options. Partner with us to bring these demands to life, combining innovation with culinary expertise to craft exceptional products and recipes that stand out in a dynamic food and beverage landscape.

Bakery
Bakery

Elevate your cookies, cakes, and pies with high-quality, natural ingredients like rich cocoa or smooth nut pastes. Enhance flavor and texture in every bite while delighting the senses with responsibly sourced ingredients. Your next bakery creation starts here!

Beverages
Beverages

From spiced cold brew to golden milk, every ingredient matters. Customize and co-create with us to craft unique hot, cold, or plant-based beverages. Tailor taste, texture, and nutrition from plant to palate to meet modern consumer preferences.

Chocolate & Confectionery
Chocolate & Confectionery

Cocoa delights the world in chocolate, desserts, and more. We’re reimagining it with reduced sugar, vegan, organic, and traceable solutions. Try crafting vegan 'milk' chocolate bars with our gluten-free, grain-free cashew flour for treats that are better for you and the planet!

Dairy & Desserts
Dairy & Desserts

Emerging trends in milks, yogurts, and ice creams offer chances to create indulgent yet healthy treats. Try twists like chocolate doughnut coffee ice cream! Our R&D experts pair cocoa with pea, nut, or oat bases and reduce bitterness in FMP formats with Fresco Cacao.

Savory & Culinary
Savory & Culinary

Why follow trends when you can create them? Together, we can craft sauces, nut-based cheeses, and spice blends that inspire. Try our Oaxaca-inspired choco mole sauce, made with authentic spices and premium cocoa. Rich in antioxidants, it’s a sensory delight!

Snacking
Snacking

Let’s create the next big trail mix, cereal, or snack bar! Together, we’ll craft tasty, nutritious, and traceable options. Try seasoned nut recipes inspired by global cuisines, like Spicy Citrus Coast Almonds or Candied Cashews with Warm Sedona Sunset from our Blends of the Americas.

Plant-Based
Plant-Based

Create indulgent treats with our cocoa powder and nut pastes—perfect for center-filled cookies, cake toppings, or pie crusts. Explore tastes, textures, and colors that delight consumers while caring for people and the planet. Let’s craft sweet treats with a natural twist!

We’re there for you, all around the world

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countries

11000+

customers

18000+

employees

14

innovation centers

110+

manufacturing facilities

How do we bring this to life 

Wherever you are, count on us to be nearby. Our global network of innovation and application centers is full of fresh thinking, great ideas, and ingredient expertise, ready to bring your vision to life.

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.

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

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