Olam to open cocoa powder plant outside Chicago

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 US$1.2 billion. That did not include ADM's US chocolate plants.