Blog
Read about the latest developments across the business, including our global sustainability initiatives.
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In 1989 Nigeria was the launch pad for Olam’s global business endeavours, and we have featured prominently in the country’s economy ever since.
With an initial focus on the procurement of primary commodities like cashews, cocoa and shea nut, we gradually refined our operational scope and expanded operations into 3 major business streams, namely exports, imports, and branded packaged food products.
Today, we have over 3,000 staff spread throughout the country, engaged in helping us manage our value chain activities of sourcing, processing, marketing and distribution.
With offices and operational units across all geopolitical zones of the Nigerian Federation, Olam has a wide and growing network of farmers, suppliers, wholesalers, local buying agents (LBAs), customers and service providers. Today, these networks encompass approximately 500,000 farmers and have created tens of thousands of jobs in indirect employment.
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Principal business activities in Nigeria include:
- Animal Feeds and Hatchery with Olam Hatcheries Limited - our most recent major investment
- Sourcing and procurement, grading, processing and export of agricultural products such as cocoa, cashew, and sesame
- Local farming, milling and distribution of rice
- Wheat milling and Pasta with group company Crown Flour Mills
- Biscuits, candy and confectionery with OK Foods Ltd
- Noodles with Olam Sanyo
- Dairy beverages with Caraway Africa Nigeria Ltd.
- Culinary ingredients with Caraway Africa Nigeria Ltd.
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Sustainability in Nigeria
In 2013, we invested over 19 billion Naira in a 10,000-hectare farm with integrated mill which directly employs 950 people from the surrounding communities, producing 36,000 metric tonnes of rice for the Nigerian markets (Mama’s Pride and Mama’s Choice brands). The farm also supports an ‘outgrower programme’ whereby surrounding rice-growing communities are supported by the Olam farm with training, pre-finance, fertiliser and seeds in order to improve their paddy yields.
Currently 7,000 farmers are engaged in the programme. This investment is specifically in line with the Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda to produce rice for the domestic market thereby boosting self-sufficiency. In 2013, it was internationally recognised by The Rockefeller Foundation as a catalytic innovation’ in African Agriculture’ and in 2018, it has been identified as one of 3 high impact success stories for Global Recognition by the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Investments in recent years, in addition to the rice farm, include:
- Pioneering domestic sesame hulling and sesame exports. Olam was the first entrant into the Japanese import market in 1995, and has invested in state-of-the-art processing facilities in Lagos and Ogun states, which employ close to 1000 workers;
- In 2017, we invested in an integrated animal feed mill, poultry breeding farms and hatchery in Chikpiri Gabas Village, Gwagwada in Kaduna State. Through our facilities, we are stimulating the entire Nigerian poultry and fish farming sector by providing local farmers and distributors with high-quality feed and chicks at competitive prices, offering training for farmers on best poultry practices and creating thousands of direct and indirect rural employment opportunities.
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Meet the Team
We employ over 10,000 people across over 82 locations.
Mukul Mathur
Country Head, Nigeria
News, Views and Insights
23rd Jun, 2021
Olam Food Ingredients announces targets to tackle poverty and scale up sustainability in global cashew supply chains
London
Today Olam Food Ingredients (“OFI”), one of the world’s largest suppliers of ingredients* from almonds to black pepper, has published sustainability targets to tackle the biggest challenges in the global cashew supply chain, starting with farmer livelihoods.
Cashew farmers are among the poorest in the world. Most are smallholders in rural areas across Africa and Asia and cannot always grow enough to feed their families, afford much-needed healthcare or send their children to school. OFI, which has directly supported over 50,000 cashew farmers over the last decade, hopes to change this and encourage others in the sector to collaborate for measurable change.
The Cashew Trail strategy sets 2030 targets across OFI’s cashew business – in line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals1 and OFI’s commitment to deliver naturally good, sustainable ingredients. These include ambitious goals to fight poverty by increasing avera
3rd Sep, 2020
Digital business breakthrough in Ghana
First smartphone food B2B App transforms grocery distribution and fuels Olam's digital expansion plans in West Africa
Olam Markets, Ghana's first and only B2B mobile app in the food sector, has made such a positive impact with grocery distributors that its owner, global food and agri-business Olam International, is now planning to take the app into West Africa.
Developed for the distributors of various foods businesses of Olam Ghana, including staples such as Royal Aroma Rice and First Choice Flour, culinary products such as Tasty Tom Tomato Mix, and branded snack foods such as Nutrisnax Biscuits, the app launched on June 24, 2019 after multiple rounds of testing in Accra and other towns, as well as the involvement of a team of young Ghanaians fresh from their year of post-tertiary education national service. The app added an average of 50 distributors each month, and, in little over a year, is today used by 90% of distributors supplying retailers with packaged foods processed a
11th Jun, 2021
UN World Day Against Child Labour 2021: Putting children first in cocoa
By Andrew Brooks, Head of Cocoa Sustainability, Olam Food Ingredients (OFI)
This week, the world’s attention turns to a heavy burden that can damage a child’s health and education: child labour. In OFI’s cocoa business, we are focused on solving this problem every day.
Most child labour in cocoa relates to children carrying out hazardous tasks on the family farm, distinct from the much rarer issue of forced labour, and has no one cause. Labour laws can be misunderstood, and schools might be located far away. Even if there is a school nearby, children may not have the documents they need to enrol. When combined with rural poverty, many parents think their child’s time is best spent helping on the farm. And now, these cocoa-growing communities are also battling a global health pandemic.
We’re working to tackle each of these challenges in turn. Under our Cocoa Compass sustainability ambition, we aim to completely eradicate child labour from our direct supply chain by 2030 and ens
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