Barry Callebaut is spending heavily on its Belgian plants while its sales volumes are still moving the wrong way.
The chocolate group said it will invest rpughly $297 million in a multi-year upgrade of its Wieze site in Belgium, which it describes as the largest chocolate factory in the world. It also set aside $149 million for separate upgrades at its Halle factory, also in Belgium.
At Wieze, the money is investing into the basics. Barry Callebaut said it will modernize production lines and strengthen food safety and quality standards. It also plans to build a ring road on the site to create one-way traffic, a change the company said is meant to improve safety.
Filip Hermans, plant manager at Wieze, said the plan will “not only improve our operational capabilities in Wieze, but also create a more modern, safer, and attractive working environment for our dedicated employees.” He said the upgrades are designed to future-proof the site so it can “continue to deliver our customers with the best service, value, and quality.”
Barry Callebaut said part of the spending falls under its previously announced BC Next Level restructuring program, with the rest counted as regular capital expenditure.
The announcement comes as the Zurich-based group works through a weaker period. In its Q1 fiscal 2025/26 results, Barry Callebaut reported group volumes down 9.9% year on year. Volumes in its Global Chocolate division fell 6.8%, even though it said cocoa bean prices averaged 16% lower than the prior-year period. The company has attributed the decline to customers and consumers adjusting buying behaviour in response to higher prices, and said the rebound it expected has not materialized.
Away from its core chocolate output, Barry Callebaut has been pushing new bets. In November, it entered a long-term partnership with German fermentation specialist Planet A Foods to scale ChoViva, a cocoa-free chocolate alternative made from sunflowers and oats. The company said ChoViva now appears in 125 products across 10 countries. It also partnered with NotCo AI on an AI-powered innovation hub aimed at speeding up recipe development.
In short, Barry Callebaut is building its way out of a slump. While the bean counters (literally) wait for sales volumes to hopefully bounce back, the engineers are busy turning the world’s largest chocolate factory into a high-tech fortress of efficiency. From fermented German oats to AI-powered recipe hubs, the company seems to be throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks—and ensuring that when the world’s appetite for chocolate finally recovers, they’ll have the shiniest, fastest, and most “future-proof” kitchen on the planet to serve it from.
Source: Foodingredientsfirst