Global cocoa producer Barry Callebaut is leasing 350,000 square feet of Eddystone’s Delco Logistics Center, writes Paul Schwedison for Philadelphia Business Journal.

The Zurich-based Barry Callebaut will use the warehouse at 1500 E. 2nd Street to streamline its supply chain, storing cocoa products and beans that will be used at its manufacturing facility next door at 903 Industrial Highway.

The company makes semi-finished cocoa products like cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, and cocoa powder. It counts Hershey among its customers.

Barry Callebaut receives cocoa beans mostly from West Africa at the Port of Philadelphia. The beans are distributed through third parties among 20 warehouses in the region, some 40 miles away.

When the company moves to the new warehouse by August, it will cut down to using only five warehouses managed by third-party companies.

The move lets the company control the beans from the time it leaves the farm to when its processed, said Hugo van der Goes, Barry Callebaut’s vice president of cocoa for North America.

 “This is a bit of an investment for the long term as well next to the advantages of the traceability and the advantages of being next door,” he said.

Read more about Barry Callebaut leasing space at the Delco Logistics Center in Philadelphia Business Journal.

See how this world cocoa producer is making chocolate sustainable.