Curaçao 2025

Welcome to our much-anticipated regional meet in the beautiful island of Curaçao! It is with great pleasure that I extend my warmest greetings to each one of you. This gathering is a testament to our collective achievements and the unwavering dedication of our team across the Central American & Andean (CAA) region.

Reflecting on the past year, 2024 has been a remarkable period of growth and success for our region despite facing heightened volatility, record prices, and supply challenges. I am proud to announce that 2024 was the region’s best financial performance yet, a testament to our collective efforts and strategic initiatives. Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala have led the numbers charts by posting great returns. Ecuador delivered this despite the tough security and political situation in 2024.

On the sustainability front, we have achieved a significant milestone with 53% of our sales volumes (Cocoa + Coffee) being certified. We supported about 60,000 farmers (20% women) with at least one intervention in 2024. ofi Guatemala became the first ofi coffee origin worldwide to be awarded a SEED cluster by Starbucks. In Ecuador, we signed the first large-scale project with GIZ & Rikolto, benefiting 2,800 cocoa farmers and families.

It was a standout year for the Specialty business in the CAA region. We almost doubled Specialty volumes to over 21,600 MT. In Colombia, we were able to add Tim Hortons as a new Specialty customer and ramp up specialty sales by gaining a second Nespresso AAA cluster in Tolima. Nicaragua added Illy to their specialty customer list.

The Nicaragua Coffee team demonstrated customer excellence by addressing and solving a critical supply problem for Nespresso after Mercon bankruptcy. They were awarded with the Robusta Cluster for the 2024/25 crop and beyond.

The Voice survey results show an 89% engagement index for CAA which is 8% higher than ofi overall and 10% higher than the external global benchmark.

Our Digitalization journey accelerated with the roll out of ofi Direct and DW in CAA for digital contracting with Suppliers / Farmers.

I would like to Congratulate all of you for all these remarkable achievements!!

As we gather here in Curacao, let us take this opportunity to celebrate our successes, share our experiences, and strategize for an even more prosperous future. The theme of our regional meet, “Agile Minds: Building Resilience for Today and Tomorrow”, perfectly encapsulates our approach to navigating the volatile cocoa and coffee markets. With limited working capital, our focus must be on high margin differentiated businesses, including certified, sustainable, and specialty.

As we look ahead, we hope to scale new heights in 2025, building on our successes and continuing to drive growth and innovation. While cherishing our successes, let us remember our few non negotiable GOLDEN RULES: NO controllable losses, Safety FIRST, Delivering our aspiration, deepen our differentiation through Sustainability, Specialty and innovation, Highest Engagement of our teams and scale up Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in each country.

I am confident that our discussions and collaborations during this meet will pave the way for continued growth and success in the coming year. Let us continue to strive for excellence and make 2025 another year of outstanding achievements for the CAA region.

Thank you for your unwavering commitment and contributions. Here’s to a productive and inspiring regional meet!

Warm Regards,