As chocolate users know, one key fact makes the cocoa market particularly volatile: Over 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is grown in a single region of the world, West Africa. And with the decline of production in Indonesia, some 60 percent of all cocoa has come from just two countries, Ivory Coast and Ghana. As was the case last year, about 63 percent of 2017/18 cocoa will come from these two origins.

Coordination between the Ivory Coast and Ghana has been a perennial but distant prospect for years. Relations between the two countries have improved in the last few years, and cocoa cooperation now seems likelier—encouraged by the economic and budget woes that followed the sustained cocoa price weakness from late 2016 to early 2018.

Areas for cooperation include the scheduling of bean sales and export timing as well as the highly sensitive matter of minimum farmgate pricing.

Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia cocoa bean production history

Source: McKeany-Flavell
Posted by: Information Services
Our Information Services team assists our clients with understanding commodity and ingredient market dynamics. Using our extensive database of intelligence, we also produce regular commodity and commercial market publications covering supply and demand fundamentals, news alerts on events that shape the markets, and resource guides to give you a complete picture of the industries we monitor.