The facility near Amsterdam will be operated by a new subsidiary called Crown of Holland and will process internationally-sourced cocoa beans into cocoa liquor, butter and powder.
It will mean SunOpta’s organic and specialty cocoa products, which are currently processed by third parties, will now be processed in-house.
SunOpta expects the facility will have an annual processing capacity of approximately 9,000 MT of raw cocoa.
Gerard Versteegh, president of the SunOpta’s International Foods Group, said: "Vertically integrating into our own dedicated cocoa facility will allow us to have increased control over our business and expand our margins, especially as we increase throughput.”