Cardinal Torch Bets on Processing to Rewrite Nigeria’s Commodity Story

Cardinal Torch wants to stop sending Nigeria’s raw agricultural commodities abroad and begin exporting finished products instead. Six years after its founding, the company is presenting processing as the next stage of its business.

The agribusiness has raised ₦10 billion in the capital market and plans to list on the stock exchange. It is also building four processing plants across Ogun and Lagos states. Company executives said the wider ambition is to create a business that lasts beyond its founders.

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We were established in the year 2020, and to date we have done a lot of commodity exports, particularly with cocoa, cashew, sesame and soya. All that we have dealt with in the last six years has been actively exporting raw products.

Cardinal Torch currently operates across sourcing, warehousing, quality testing, logistics, processing and export. It sources from cooperatives and farmers across Nigeria’s agricultural belts. Its reported monthly export volumes include 5,000 metric tons of maize, 3,000 metric tons each of millet and husked brown rice, and 300 metric tons of grain sorghum. The company also imports wheat, soybeans and other industrial inputs.

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We decided that the next phase of the company is to start processing and value addition.

Managing Director and Chief Executive David Oladunjoye Olurin said the company had spent its first six years actively exporting raw cocoa, cashew, sesame and soy products. “We decided that the next phase of the company is to start processing and value addition,” he said.

Chief Technical Officer Emmanuel Mshelia said Cardinal Torch is moving from commodity trading to agro-processing and eventually food manufacturing. The company’s first major project is a raw cashew nut factory in Ogun State, scheduled for commissioning in the fourth quarter of 2026. The plant is designed to process 10 tons per day and produce 2.5 metric tons of white kernels daily, with annual export capacity of about 600 metric tons.

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As the CEO has rightly said, I will speak to the plans of our company as we transition from just being a commodities trading company to an agro processor and eventually a food manufacturing company.

The facility will also extract cashew nut shell liquid for industrial use and burn shells to power its boilers. Mshelia described this as waste valorization. He said Nigeria produces between 280,000 and 350,000 metric tons of cashews annually, but more than 80% goes to India or Vietnam for processing. Cardinal Torch says it wants to capture more of that value within Nigeria.

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More than 80% goes to India or Vietnam. And so they end up processing these raw materials and getting the entire value of it. So we intend to plug that in.