Cargill Building Ghanaian Cocoa Plant

NEW YORK - Jun 3/06 - SNS -- Cargill will build a 60,000 metric ton (MT) capacity plant in Ghana to produce cocoa liquor, butter and powder. The facility will be located in the port of Tema and can be expanded to 120,000 MT.

The announcement follows a recent high-level meeting between his Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana John Kufuor, and Cargill’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Warren Staley, along with other Ghanaian government officials and senior Cargill executives. Construction is due to begin during the next few months and the facility should be operational by the end of 2007.

In a further commitment to cocoa in the country, Cargill today signed a long-term cocoa bean supply agreement with Isaac Osei, Chief Executive of the Ghana cocoa board.

Paul Naar, Head of Cargill's food ingredients business in Europe and Africa, said, "The quality of Ghanaian cocoa beans is excellent, and we are pleased to invest in a country whose government is committed to cocoa and further developing its processing industry."