Leading food ingredients supplier of what matters
Our cocoa, coffee, dairy, nut and spice ingredients are heaped with sensory and functional features – while we’re also able to offer products that are traceable, sustainable and transparent. We can help you develop winning consumer products in bakery, beverages, dairy, culinary, savory, snacking and sports nutrition categories with ease, scale and integrity.
We’re a super specialist in all things cocoa – beans, powders, butters and beyond. In fact, we have a leading presence in 10 key producing countries across Africa, Asia and South America. In our direct sourcing, our traceability from the farm to the factory allows us to drive sustainable practices across the cocoa supply chain.
As a leading global supplier of green coffee, with a significant specialty and soluble coffee offering, we’re buzzing with know-how. Our year-round presence in 18 major origins means we can offer you the responsible, traceable supply consumers want – and the rare roasts you need to differentiate your brand.
Dairy products have a key place in many consumers’ lives. It’s there in a cup of tea, slice of cheese, or spoonful of cream. Whether it’s a specific beverage blend or an exacting protein isolate or concentrate, we can help you deliver the tastes, textures and nutrition people love.
We’re one of the world’s leading suppliers with integrated supply chains across six continents. Almonds to hazelnuts, macadamias to pistachios – just name your nut. Many consumers look to nuts for their health-halo effects, making them a winning ingredient in a range of categories.
We’re one of the world largest global suppliers of spices and herbs, sourcing from all the primary growing regions and offering everything from onion, garlic and chiles to pepper, parsley and tropical spices. Work with us to make sure that provenance, taste, quality, color and texture tick all the right boxes.
Partnering at every step from raw materials to value added ingredients
This is how ofi as a food ingredients company delivers value to customers. We co-create to delight consumers, grow your business and create real change for people and planet.
Our journey so far
We are privileged to carry with us the 30-year legacy and rich heritage of Olam, and that DNA of ambition and growth will continue to drive us in the future as a food ingredients company.
Olam International began back in 1989 by exporting raw cashews from Nigeria to India. Then came cocoa in 1992, followed by coffee in 1996, spices in 2002, and dairy in 2005. Olam continued to grow, investing in the breadth and depth of its portfolio and establishing global leaders for each business.
In January 2020, Olam reorganized into three groups: Olam Group and two operating groups: Olam Agri and olam food ingredients (ofi). ofi operates in 49 countries serving over 8,000 valued customers globally, leveraging its complementary and differentiated portfolio of ‘on-trend’ food products, to co-create solutions that meet changing consumer preferences.
Sourcing nuts, cocoa beans, coffee spices and dairy ingredients at scale is just the start. Our focus is on innovating in all areas of supply chains and taking care of our ingredients from plant to palate. Whether it’s introducing digital tech to improve traceability and reliability of supply, or helping spot trends and responding to them with new plant-based tastes and textures.
As a leading food ingredient supplier, sustainability has been core to Olam's identity from the start, supporting Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals. Award-winning farmer support programs and the launch of the AtSource platform in 2018 have furthered this commitment.
Read ofi news
Author | Andrew Brooks | Head of Sustainability, Cocoa, ofi
World Chocolate Day, a day to not only indulge, but to remember the people and landscapes that grow the cocoa that goes into our favorite products. Both are vital to help maintain a sustainable future for cocoa production. That’s why as part of our Cocoa Compass sustainability ambition, we collaborate with our customers and partners on multi-stakeholder partnerships to drive collective action and lasting impact.
Climate change is among the biggest challenges in growing cocoa. In Indonesia, for example, intensive rainfall, drought, rising temperatures, and an increase in related pests, threatens farmer yields and erodes their livelihoods, including those of women and indigenous groups that depend on their crops for subsistence. Yet many farmers struggle to access the support they need to adapt and become more resilient.
A climate-smart agroforestry system is key to addressing and mitigating climate change risks, which is why we co-created the Landscape Approach to Sustainable and Climate Change Resilient Cocoa and Coffee (LASCARCOCO), a three-year partnership with USAID, non-profit Rikolto, the Hershey Company, and the Indonesian Government, to help 6,500 farmers increase yields by 25% and conserve 14,000 hectares by late 2025.
Through the partnership, we have developed a new curriculum to train farmers in Good Agricultural Practices and climate adaption, promoted sustainable agroforestry – where forest and shade trees are planted alongside cocoa and coffee to restore forest covers – and provided farmers with seedlings. It’s already making a difference – in year one of the project, approximately 8,600 individuals were reached directly or indirectly via the program. The LASCARCOCO USAID ofi project has successfully bridged a constructed collaborative action with stakeholders involved in the project such as farmers, forest communities, government, and forest authorities to deliver an agroforestry program.
Good landscape governance is also critical to protect the land and the incomes of the farmers who work it. In Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, we’re working with the Rainforest Alliance and USAID on the Resilient Ecosystems and Sustainable Transformation of Rural Economies (RESTORE) project. This not only promotes regenerative and sustainable cocoa production; it also aims to strengthen Landscape Management Boards (LMBs).
These boards are important because they bring key stakeholders together – community members, local farmers, the Ghanaian Forestry Commission, and COCOBOD – and give the local community a say in how the land is managed. We provide ongoing support and training to LMB members on everything from management and financial literacy to climate-smart farming and forest-friendly enterprises such as beekeeping and piggery.
Whilst we’re proud of the impact we have made so far, there is still much more to do. We remain focused on working with customers, civil society, national governments, and other stakeholders to support farmers and to protect landscapes across origins – so when consumers pick up their chocolate bar or cocoa-flavored treat, they can be confident that it’s been produced in a way that supports people and helps protect the planet.
Author | Billie Elmqvist Thurén | Human Rights ofi Sustainability & Cocoa Lead
Accessible education is an effective way to reduce the risk of the incidence of child labor as well as providing a foundation for protecting children’s rights. Through our Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS), we monitor and identify the specific needs of communities across our nine global sustainable sourcing regions.
From providing access to schools closer to home to initiatives that empower cocoa households to be more economically resilient, here are a few ways we are removing barriers for children in our cocoa supply chain to attend school and develop their future potential.
- New 2030 social and environmental targets set for ofi’s global operations which span ~50 countries, building on the existing product-specific strategies for cocoa, coffee, dairy, nuts, and spices.
- Strong focus on supply chain excellence to enhance supplier engagement, mitigate supply chain risks, and give customers more rigorous, verifiable data for sustainability decision-making and reporting.
- Impact will be achieved in partnership with farmers, governments, civil society and ofi’s customers, backed by clear action plans and methodologies outlined by ofi.
ofi, a leading supplier of naturally good food and beverage ingredients, today unveiled a new sustainability strategy – ‘Choices for Change’ and ambitious 2030 targets.
Global food brands and retailers are facing growing consumer demand for sustainable products, with increasing weather related and other challenges in the food supply chain and significant new sustainability linked legislation coming up. With ‘Choices for Change’, ofi will provide these companies and their consumers with specific choices to deliver long-term impact across four critical pillars: Prosperous Farmers, Thriving Communities, Climate Action, and Regenerating the Living World.
Every 2030 target in the Choices for Change strategy delivers on key customer needs, including:
- Delivering enhanced livelihood support to one million farmers, helping them to be more productive and deliver better quality ingredients.
- Cutting scope 3 emissions by 30% to offer customers verifiable, low-carbon products and ingredients and contribute to net-zero commitments.
- Bringing 2 million hectares of land under regenerative farming practices to create long-term farm resilience and products with verified positive natural impact.
To give customers more rigorous, verifiable data for sustainability decision-making and reporting, the strategy incorporates a focus on supply chain excellence. This brings traceability, data insights, risk mitigation, verification, and in-depth supplier engagement together to enable the right choices and includes ofi’s suite of award-winning tech tools like AtSource - the sustainability management system and its built in Carbon Scenario Planner for planning and costing climate action.
Hungry for more? Let’s talk.
We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch today.
