NEW YORK – Global commodities trader Olam International Ltd is building a cocoa powder manufacturing facility outside Chicago, according to a company spokesman and a local official.
The plant marks the latest step in the transformation of the large Singapore-based cocoa trader into a bean processing heavyweight. In 2015, Olam scooped up the cocoa assets of rival Archer Daniels Midland Co for about $1.2 billion. That did not include ADM’s U.S. chocolate plants.
Olam is building the nearly 183,000-square-foot facility which is expected to be fully operational by mid-2018, said Matt Eastman, a planning and zoning administrator for Bolingbrook, Illinois, where the plant will be located. Olam spokesman Levi Hensel confirmed the company was building a new facility, but declined to provide details, citing a quiet period ahead its quarterly financial report.
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