GHANA – Cargill has unveiled plans of investing US$13 million for the expansion of its cocoa processing site in Tema, Ghana to increase production capacity by 20%.

Cargill has also committed an addition US$3.4 million over the next three years to Ghanaian community sustainability programmes and supply chain traceability efforts.

These programmes are billed to enhance the safety and wellbeing of children and families in cocoa farming areas as well as providing a more transparent, traceable cocoa supply chain for customers and consumers.

Global cocoa demand keeps growing and Cargill says it is committed to delivering secure, sustainable and innovative cocoa and chocolate products.

In Ghana, where Cargill has already achieved 100 percent traceability in its supply chain from farm to factory using high-end technologies, will continue to invest in GPS polygon mapping of new farms that have recently joined the Cargill Cocoa Promise program and are delivering cocoa through its Licensed Buying Company.

Having operations in Côte d’Ivoire, the company unveiled plans of investing US$120.5million in expanding its cocoa grinding plant in Micao, Côte d’Ivoire, early September.

The investment will see the company increase the facility’s annual capacity from the current 110,000 to 170,000 tons.

The expansion will be carried out in two phases, the first phase will be completed in April 2020 and the second in April 2021.

This initiative is part of Cargill’s strategy to increase its annual beans processing activity.

This was followed by renewed partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to introduce new initiatives to strengthen cocoa producing cooperatives and their communities through an improved Coop Academy 2.0 program.

The improved Coop Academy 2.0 program, supported by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), private sector window managed by IFC will feature updated training with an even stronger focus on digitalization and traceability to provide cooperatives stronger data and analytics to inform critical business decisions.

The digital program will provide 35,250 farmers with access to digital payments platform, enable utilization and access to digital financial services.

Measurement and benchmarking, using a tool developed by IFC and SCOPEInsight, will give the impact and increase business opportunities for over 125,000 farmers.

It will benchmark activities such as operations, sustainability, financial and internal management, with the purpose of assessing how increased leadership capacity results in improved management of the cooperatives.