Integrated supply chains create traceability and reliable supply

We’re deeply involved at every stage of our supply chains - from plant to palate - which means we give you more value, more control and greater reliability.

Our procurement and logistics teams are based in all the major growing regions. We also have manufacturing and innovation centers around the world. Plus, with superior supply chain visibility we can offer increasing traceability right back to the farming community or farm.

Supply Chain Coverage

We help prevent disruption for retailers with supply chain control and enable them to appeal to eco-conscious consumers as we have the people and programs in place to offer traceability and sustainability.

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Control Supply

We invest in integration across the supply chain for consistent high-quality supply. 

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Manage Sustainability

AtSource gives you end-to-end traceability with ESG metrics that matter.

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Food Safety

Strict quality and food safety standards in line with industry norms, across our supply chains. Pre-harvest procedures and protocols and post-harvest care.

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Meet Shopper Demands

We are constantly tracking current health trends and consumer behaviors to help you create new products with natural ingredients. 

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Enrich Your Brand Story

ofi gives you more transparency and consistent quality for a real and complete story to enrich your brand.

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Risk Management
Minimising sourcing, food safety and regulatory risk

In agriculture, you learn to expect the unexpected. Thanks to our global presence and diversified sourcing, we can always adapt so disruption to your supply is minimized.

 

Farming can be unpredictable. A harvest might be lower than anticipated. Prices can drop or climb dramatically due to over- or undersupply. But, thanks to being spread across the world and sourcing ingredients from multiple origins, at ofi we can manage these risks. Which means you get reliable supply. 

 

Our diversified global presence also helps to insulate us from supply shocks that may disrupt the production of a particular crop in a particular location in any particular year. It allows us to offer certainty of supply and provide the requisite food safety and quality assurance to our customers through adaptive solutions. 

 

This is supported by our team of risk experts who have deep understanding of agricultural commodities and financial instruments trading to help manage the price changes and volatility that can create a difficult operating environment for producers and supply chain participants. We focus on building long-term partnerships with our customers and offering tailored solutions. 

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Traceability & Provenance
Do you know where your ingredients come from?

Consumers increasingly want reassurance about where their ingredients come from. Thanks to ofi’s superior traceability, you can give them exactly that.

 

Providing traceability for agricultural raw materials can be challenging given the complex and fragmented nature of many ingredient supply chains, because many crops tend to be grown by small-scale farmers who sell to an intermediary, who may then sell on to another intermediary, mixing sacks from different sources along the way. With the aim of reducing complexity in our supply chains, we make every effort to work directly with farmers, organising buying stations and local cooperatives.

 

This way of working not only provides us with the data we need to trace our supply back to the farmer groups we work with, but also provides opportunities to create positive impact by implementing sustainability programmes with customer, government, not for profit and development finance institution partners. With traceability, we can also reduce social and environmental risks such as deforestation and human rights abuses. 

 

We also work closely with large-scale growers such as in California for our onions and garlic. Here, we have long-standing relationships with multi-generational farmers passionate about their crops and stewardship of their land. We provide them with proprietary world-class seeds and our ag operations teams and crop supervisors help support production, harvesting and logistics. Of course, with our own farms and estates such as almonds, black pepper and dairy farms, we offer full traceability and absolute control. 

 

Action includes:

 

  • Ensuring all suppliers sign the Supplier Code – which also applies to their suppliers

  • Training farmers through our sustainability programmes 

  • Providing advice and guidance through our digital applications

 

ofi’s unique technologies play a vital role in improving traceability:

 

  • Olam Direct: the app that lets farmers do business directly with ofi

  • Olam Farmer Information System (OFIS): putting isolated smallholder farmers on the digital map.

  • AtSource: our sustainability insights platform which gives you more supply chain transparency than ever before

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Improved Quality & Functionality
Food ingredients you can rely on

You expect consistent functionality of ingredients. That’s why we have our own people on the ground at every stage of the supply chain.

 

Getting better performance from food ingredients starts with the best seeds and seedlings. This is an ongoing mission for our plant scientists and agronomists in their support to farmers. One of our seeds, developed by the Spices team, produces onions with more dry matter—boosting yields and reducing the amount of water, fertiliser and pesticide needed per acre. A great example of the power of plant science.

 

In our smallholder farmer networks, our sustainability teams provide training on how to get the best quality crops with the lowest environmental impact. For example, with careful use of fertilisers and pesticides, replacing synthetic chemicals with natural alternatives wherever possible.  

 

In addition, our own custom developed planting and harvesting equipment has shown significant reductions in our carbon footprint. We also provide training on how to protect crops post-harvest, providing equipment such as drying mats and tables which help prevent contamination from the soil.

 

This combination of superior seed, expertise and reduced inputs provides our farmers with well-managed crop risk and yield. All made possible thanks to our global reach and teams working together at every step of the supply chain. 

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Food Safety & Quality
Putting consumer safety at the heart of our operations

Making sure our ingredients are delivered to customers without contamination or adulteration is our top priority.

 

We achieve this by:

 

  • Operating highly integrated supply chains working with both large-scale growers and smallholders

  • Providing training and quality seeds to help farmers reduce the risk of contamination

  • Maintaining the highest standards of quality and food safety control at our processing plants

  • Continuously investing in safety, health, quality and sustainability 

  • Putting in place food quality and safety systems including GMP and HACCP 

Tractor lifting heavy white bag onto conveyer belt
Risk Management
Minimising sourcing, food safety and regulatory risk
Man holding a mobile device that tracks food ingredients
Traceability & Provenance
Do you know where your ingredients come from?
Hands of a person planting a small tree
Improved Quality & Functionality
Food ingredients you can rely on
Man holding a mobile device that tracks food ingredients
Food Safety & Quality
Putting consumer safety at the heart of our operations

Read ofi news

Press Release Apr 23, 2025
Nestlé and ofi launch global agroforestry partnership in largest collaboration yet
  • Approximately 25,000 farmers across Brazil, Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria will be trained and supported to convert their farms to agroforestry and implement crop residue management
  • The aim is to plant over 2.8 million trees and cultivate more than 72,000 hectares of agroforestry as part of a transition to regenerative agriculture.
  • It’s estimated to cut more than 1.5 million tons of CO2 over the next 30 years from these activities

 

Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company and ofi (olam food ingredients), a global leader in naturally good food and beverage ingredients and solutions, are launching their largest-ever joint cocoa agroforestry partnership to reduce carbon emissions and combat deforestation.

 

As the cocoa industry faces the dual challenges of rising demand and increased environmental pressures, Nestlé and ofi are stepping up their efforts to create a more sustainable future for cocoa production.

 

Spanning Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, and Brazil, approximately 25,000 farmers will be supported in transitioning to climate-smart farming, over a 5-year period in each country by implementing agroforestry and crop residue management[1]. These activities will be monitored until 2055, with ofi’s carbon footprinting experts estimating they can cut carbon emissions by 1.5 million tons of CO2 over the next 30 years.  

 

The project aims to cultivate more than 72,000 hectares of agroforestry, as part of a transition to regenerative agriculture. This includes planting an estimated 2.8 million trees, which will be 3rd party verified, from the nursery to the farm. The baselines for these activities have been established using ofi’s AI-powered Carbon Stock Monitoring tool and will be used continuously to track the geolocation of the trees and that they are growing to comply with the objectives set out by Nestlé and ofi.

 

The global partnership builds on 15 years of Nestlé and ofi collaborating on sustainable cocoa and is their largest joint agroforestry initiative to date. It is designed to support Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan and 2050 Net Zero targets while also contributing towards ofi’s Cocoa Compass sustainability ambition, which introduced new targets for regenerative agriculture.  These feed into ofi’s overarching sustainability strategy, Choices for Change, with a vision of being the preferred partner for positive change.

Press Release Mar 14, 2025
Innovative ofi app targeting infant malnutrition wins at UK’s largest sustainable business awards
  • A smartphone-based application being deployed by global food ingredients supplier ofi to tackle infant malnutrition has won the ‘Social Sustainability Project of the Year’ category at this year’s Edie awards, which celebrate sustainability leadership.

 

The Infant Malnutrition System Alert (IMSA) app was developed by ofi sustainability analyst Dr Stéphanie Konan PhD to address high-rates of infant malnutrition in Côte d’Ivoire, where one in five children experience stunted growth and development. It is the first digital health screening service in the country, powered by a geographic information system. By sending alerts to nearby or configured healthcare facilities of registered cases in real-time, IMSA digitized the malnutrition monitoring, enabling quicker treatment, facilitating follow-up, and providing the National Nutrition Program with insightful high level reports.

 

Since 2019, during the Journée d’Intensification des Activités de Nutrition (JIAN) in Côte d’Ivoire, ofi has been supporting the digitalization of malnutrition screening by using IMSA. This annual campaign is part of its existing nutrition and health programs in Côte d’Ivoire, where it sources cashew, cocoa, and coffee from over 185,000 farming families and via a vast network of local traders.

 

In 2024, working in partnership with Côte d’Ivoire’s National Nutrition Program, ofi teams and volunteers screened over 22,000 children in cashew communities in the Béoumi district. 370 moderate and acute cases of malnutrition were identified and referred to healthcare facilities. The app also allows ofi to track every case referred for treatment, allowing for 6-month follow-ups.

 

ofi’s field workers, together with its partners, and local community health workers, also delivered crucial interventions including deworming and Vitamin A tablets, and information on good nutrition – as studies show that infant malnutrition can be largely attributed to a lack of education and low literacy rates.

 

As well as the Edie award, IMSA and its contribution to national efforts to combat malnutrition was awarded the Prize for Research and Innovation by Côte d'Ivoire’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in 2023.

 

The developer of the app, ofi’s sustainability analyst Dr Stéphanie Konan PhD, said: “IMSA was born from a simple idea: that replacing the existing paper-based screening with a digital solution could enable earlier detection and treatment. From that simple idea, collaboration and partnership has built a successful program. ofi’s local teams, embedded in farming communities, have trained community health service agents and established partnerships with local health authorities to reach tens of thousands of farming families."

 

“What’s really exciting is the great potential IMSA offers for scaling up malnutrition screening and interventions across other regions and countries facing similar public health issues. These kinds of innovative ideas delivered at scale are central to delivering ofi’s long-term ambition to help farming communities thrive.

 

Discover much more about what ofi has to offer at ofi.com

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