Largest ever load of cocoa beans in Amsterdam port
This week, the MV Teal Bay brought 22,300 tonnes of cocoa beans to Katoen Natie in the Westhaven. It is the largest cargo of cocoa beans ever to arrive in the port of Amsterdam in one go. The ship, which came from Ghana, was unloaded in a few days and the beans were stored in the warehouses.
'This mega bulk shipment of 22,300 tons of cocoa beans is very special,' says Eugene Bleekemolen commercial director of Katoennatie Amsterdam. 'The amount of cargo unloaded still varies sometimes, but this is an outlier.' Bleekemolen and involved partners OFI (Olam Food Ingredients) and Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate - for which the beans were supplied - together with Koen Overtoom and Jaïr de Pauw of PoA watch the unloading and are proud.
Upon unloading, the beans were stored in Cotton Nation's new bulk cocoa warehouses. The cocoa beans are then delivered partly by truck but mainly by barge to the cocoa processing industries , in this case OFI and Cargill. There, cocoa butter, cocoa mass and/or cocoa powder are made which in turn are the components for the production of chocolate.
Shield for the captain
Jaïr de Paauw, Commercial Manager at Port of Amsterdam, presented the captain of MV Teal Bay with the Port of Amsterdam shield to celebrate this happy moment and give the ship a warm welcome.
Sustainable initiatives
Not only the amount of cargo plays a role at Katoen Natie. Sustainability is also a high priority. For example, all the roofs are fitted with solar panels. The warehouses are equipped with sensors with LED lighting and in the warehouses for cocoa semi-finished products, all forklift trucks run electrically. And should infestation treatments need to take place, this is done through treatment rooms with oxygen extraction instead of chemical agents.
Sustainability and sustainability are high priorities at Katoen Natie: 'We do sustainability for and with our customers and partners, in other words, sustainability. Professionalizing 'Cocoa warehousing' into 'Cocoa carehousing' is part of that," says Eugene Bleekemolen.
Good initiatives to make the cocoa industry more sustainable should be encouraged, according to Port of Amsterdam. 'Port of Amsterdam goes for sustainable cargo and pulls together with partners to achieve these goals,' says Jaïr de Paauw. The developments at Katoennatie is a good example of this.
