COCOA processor Blommer Chocolate will close its Chicago chocolate factory as the aging facility is no longer reliable.
The company, owned by Japan’s Fuji Oil Holdings, said its original 1939 plant now costs too much to operate, maintain and repair, and has “created production reliability issues,” according to a statement on Friday (Mar 22).
Blommer, the largest cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier in North America, will focus on its other facilities in Pennsylvania, California and Ontario, Canada. The company plans to invest US$100 million in the three factories over the next several years.
“It was an incredibly challenging yet inevitable decision to close the Chicago plant,” said Mark Okita, Blommer’s chief operating officer and senior vice president of commercial.
Chocolate makers are coming under pressure as cocoa prices have more than doubled this year on lower production from key West African growers.
Barry Callebaut AG, the world’s largest bulk chocolate maker, will close its factory in Norderstedt near Hamburg and cut 2,500 jobs, amounting to about 18 per cent of its work force, the German paper Handelsblatt has reported. Meanwhile, Malaysian cocoa processor Guan Chong said it is paying premiums for beans from smaller producing countries.
Cocoa futures closed at a record high US$8,939 a metric ton in New York on Friday. BLOOMBERG
