Mixed fortunes on the markets as cocoa prices soar

Though cocoa prices on the financial markets have soared, the rise is benefiting cocoa growers, bean processors, speculators and chocolatiers in unequal measure.

In March, prices rocketed to more than US$10,000 a tonne in New York after a poor harvest in West Africa due to a combination of bad weather conditions and disease devastating ageing plantations. They have since fallen back from the peak, but are still three times higher than in 2023.

In the Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s largest cocoa producers, prices are set by the authorities in October on the basis of the previous months.

But by that point, the harvests “have already been largely pre-sold”, said Dr Tancrede Voituriez of the French agricultural research and cooperation organisation Cirad.

This reduces the impact of cocoa price fluctuations – whether upwards or downwards. As a result, small-scale producers, who generally earn barely enough to live on, did not immediately benefit from the surge.

That said, the authorities raised the price of the intermediate crop in April by 50 per cent to between US$2,300 and US$2,500 per tonne – a modest rise compared with what the farmers could charge on the international exchanges.