Cocoa prices double from start of 2024 extending historic rally
Cocoa futures have doubled in less than three months as a landmark price run-up intensifies, boosting sweet costs for consumers and sending chocolate makers scouring for supply.
The most-active contract in New York rose to $8,394 a metric ton, the highest on record. Crops in West Africa — the heavyweight growing region — have been battered by diseases and a series of weather extremes, putting the world on track for a third straight supply deficit.
Processing plants there are already suffering shutdowns, and new environmental regulations looming in European importers are adding to the hurdles to source beans.
The cocoa rally is accelerating just ahead of Easter, a major chocolate-consuming holiday in countries like the US. While manufacturers buy beans months ahead of time, the rally is beginning to bite and some bars are getting more expensive, smaller or filled with other flavors to blunt the impact.
“There are lots of players who have already announced price increases. We are also part of that group,” Martin Hug, chief financial officer at chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli AG, said on a March earnings call. “It is very difficult to predict at the moment what will happen with the cocoa market. But I think we have controlled it as well as we can.”
