Ingredient innovation with consumers
and our customers in mind
Ingredient Functionality
Ingredient functionality, for us, is all about understanding what our ingredients add to the food matrix, in terms of their physical and chemical functionalities. Agricultural products, by definition, are natural and will always have a slight degree of variance. Origin and growth process combined with post-harvest processing will help determine the functionality of our raw materials and our ingredients. Knowing that, we think alongside our customers about how they can best incorporate our ingredients in their end-applications and help them make their ideas and ambitions for new products real.
Natural & Clean Label
Winning the battle for market share starts with meeting our customer’s needs for great tasting, great looking products with an optimal mouthfeel. But great taste, snap and bite, with an appealing product color, do not always match the increasing consumer desire for fewer additives in their food products. This is why we are always looking for opportunities to develop natural ingredients without the use of additives to suit clean label applications. Our nut ingredients deliver incredible texture, taste and nutrition without any complex artificial ingredients.
Several natural ingredients across our portfolio can help you recover missing elements like color and flavor. Take our spices – they can help formulators create a realistic, meat-like color in plant-based alternatives, all while maintaining a clean-label and adding to the overall flavor profile. And then there is cocoa. Cocoa powder can be used as a coloring agent in vegetarian/vegan products: deZaan Fresco Cacao F11FR is a non-bitter, mild cocoa powder that can be used to create fresh chocolate plant-based yogurts.
Another example is the development of our “TrueDark” cocoa powder, whilst staying away from color enhancing additives. And there is more. How we do it? If you work with us, we will share our darkest secrets!
Health, Nutrition & Wellbeing Benefits
Across our portfolio, health and nutrition benefits – both long-standing and emerging – are a common denominator. The nutritional value of our nuts, the macro and micronutrients of dairy, the theobromine and antioxidants in cocoa and the health associations of many spices really form a wealth of opportunities for our customers. We are always looking to see how these benefits can be protected and enhanced during the manufacturing process, whilst still tasting great.
Valorization & Upcycling
With the world’s resources under pressure, we seek to get everything we can from our raw materials. Not only to create value for our farmers, but also to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. This often uncovers new and exciting opportunities. Our sweet and fruity cascara for instance, was developed out of coffee husks, which is the skin and pulp of the coffee cherry fruit. The ingredient is now used for beverage infusions and concentrates across multiple applications to meet the growing trend for healthy indulgence.
Ingredient Functionality
Natural & Clean Label
Health, Nutrition & Wellbeing Benefits
Valorization & Upcycling
Read ofi news
Collaborating with Save the Children to tackle Child Labor
Child labor in cocoa has no one cause. There are often complex and deep-rooted cultural, social, and economic challenges at play.
Farmers cannot always afford to pay for farm labor, so their children help on the farm at weekends or after school. Some parents have no school nearby to send their children to or they cannot provide the documents needed to enroll them, such as birth certificates. Sometimes labor laws are misunderstood or poorly enforced. The complexity of the problem means one intervention will never be enough – it requires a range of long-term actions at the individual, community, and national levels.
Tackling child labor therefore requires collaboration across stakeholder groups – including customers, partners and NGOs. That is why in 2020 we invited Save The Children and its Centre for Child Rights and Business to assess how effectively we combat child labor across four of our key cocoa-growing countries (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria) and to identify areas where we could be doing more.
Save The Children found our programs have real reach and impact. Such as in Cameroon where we trained 6,000 smallholder farmers in child labor sensitization, or in Ghana where we set up protection committees covering 210 communities. It found that our strength lies in our holistic approach, which considers a range of root causes, the link we have made between traceability and child labor monitoring, and the roll-out of our digital Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation (CLMRS) app.
As a result of the study, we intend to build on our existing child labor training programs and measure their impact through before and after assessments. We plan to more strongly link community protection programs with our supply chain operations and create more robust outcome indicators to ensure we are making a real difference.
Ines Kaempfer, CEO of the Centre for Child Rights and Business, Save the Children said:
“We really welcome ofi’s readiness to allow an independent third party to review their existing child labor prevention and remediation programs in order to define their strategy going forward. The transparency demonstrated by ofi in this process is remarkable and proves to what level ofi is committed to finding the best possible strategies to protect children in their supply chains. We are looking forward to continuously supporting ofi in this endeavor."
Find out more about how we’re making the future of cocoa more sustainable.
Nespresso recognizes ofi’s coffee teams in Peru and Colombia as strategic partners
ofi’s coffee businesses in Peru and Colombia have been awarded the title of “Strategic Partner” by Nespresso for their contribution to its successful AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program.
Nespresso’s AAA coffee sourcing program is designed to ensure the continued supply of high-quality coffee while also improving the livelihoods of farmers and protecting the environment. Its name was inspired by the respected AA standard, a hallmark of coffee quality around the world, with each A standing for one of the program’s three aims: quality, sustainability and productivity.
ofi’s field teams support these aims by providing farmers with year-round support and training to produce reliable, sustainable, and traceable coffee.
“Today’s consumers want more than just exceptional quality and flavor; they want to know the coffee they buy carries a positive story for the people and environment it came from. Together with Nespresso, we’ve supported over 2,850 coffee farmers across Peru and Colombia so far to meet this demand for coffee that delights on both the sensory and sustainability front. It’s through partnerships like this that we can create real change at scale for people and planet.” Prashant Jalan, Country head Peru for ofi’s coffee platform.
The program also contributes to ofi’s 2025 sustainability commitments under Coffee LENS. Launched a year ago, the roadmap sets out targets for improving livelihoods, communities and landscapes by 2025 across ofi’s global coffee supply chain.
ofi’s nuts team recognized for industry excellence and innovation at INC Congress
ofi’s nuts team was awarded the Corporate Golden Nut Award, by the International Nut and Dried Fruit
Council (INC) Congress. The Golden Nut Award is the top international recognition of excellence in the nuts industry. The team also received the Innovation Award for Cashew Nut Oil Dipping Sauces & Dressings, which use minimally processed cashew oil to address consumer interest in the plant-based market.
