Swiss chocolate maker Barry Callebaut has halted operations at one of its plants in Mexico after tests found that production at that site did not meet the company's quality standards.
A spokesperson for Barry Callebaut, which is also one of the world's largest cocoa processors, said in a statement to Reuters the company was putting in place some corrective measures to address the sub-standard production at the plant, without giving any details about what was the problem.
Reuters had asked the company for a position about production in Mexico following information it had received from a source regarding delays on deliveries of chocolate by Barry Callebaut to some of its clients in the country.
'Corrective Actions'
"As part of these routine controls, we identified a test case in one of our Mexican factories that did not meet our standards. As a precaution, we have proactively halted production at this site and already implemented corrective actions," said the company.
The company said it was talking to clients to secure product delivery using other installations in North America.
Cocobod Ghana
Elsewhere, in cocoa, Ghana's cocoa marketing board, Cocobod, is fine-tuning a new funding model for bean purchases that will require global traders to deposit at least 60% of the value of their forward contracts at the start of the season, two sources told Reuters.
The new system will replace a three-decade old pre-export syndicated loan from international banks, which Cocobod said this week it would not raise for its 2024/25 cocoa season for the first time since 1992.
Ghana, the world’s second biggest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast, previously used the loan to finance bean purchases from farmers and shore up its reserves, helping to cool pressures on the cedi currency.
But Cocobod paid a record 8% interest on last year’s loan and now expects the new funding model to save it over $150 million in interest payments.
Under the new system, part of a trader’s deposit will be used to fund purchases from farmers via an existing partnership with a licensed cocoa buying company (LBC). In this way, traders will work with LBCs by funding them to buy the cocoa, while Cocobod will act as an intermediary, said the source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak on the issue.
"Basically, we are saying traders work with LBCs and if so, they must fund them to buy the cocoa, but Cocobod will act as the intermediary," said the source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak on the issue.
Additional reporting by ESM
