Olam Cocoa Opens Innovation Center in the US

Olam Cocoa announced the opening of its latest Cocoa Innovation Centre (CIC) in Willowbrook, Illinois, a new facility that will provide innovation capabilities to support Olam Cocoa’s North American customers.

The opening of this latest CIC, one of six globally, will assist customers in the refinement and reformulation of existing recipes, provide proof of concept opportunities, and aid in the development of new products across such diverse application categories as beverages, cereals, chocolate confectionery, dairy, biscuits and bakery, and ice cream. It comes in addition to the company’s similar facilities in Brazil, the Netherlands, Spain, Singapore and UK.

Rinus Heemskerk, global head of product development and innovation said on this occasion:

“The facility will also host regular educational and application-specific seminars as part of a range of services designed to greatly reduce product development cycle timelines and help customers keep pace with changing consumer tastes and market trends.”

Olam Cocoa is also unveiling the new look of its portfolio of cocoa product brands, deZaan, Unicao, Macao, and Joanes, as well as announcing the launch of a completely new cocoa product brand for the North American and Asia-Pacific markets, Huysman. As a region-specific brand born out of the heritage of deZaan, starting in Q3 2017, Huysman will offer a focused selection cocoa powders to these markets.

Matthias Richter, vice president of cocoa for North America, commented: “The North American market continues to see growing demand for products containing cocoa as exemplified by the recent projection that the US chocolate market’s retail value sales will grow by 9.9% from 2016 to 2021. As experienced by our customers at today’s opening, this Cocoa Innovation Centre is a valuable resource that will help them to maximize opportunities related to these demand increases.”