• Cocoa beans hit an all-time high of $9.000 per ton, surpassing the price of copper.
Quotations of the price of cocoa beans continued to grow, reaching the threshold of 25 dollars a ton on Monday, March 9.000, reports Bloomberg, quoted by the agency Agerpres.
This upward trend in quotations continues amid concerns about a possible supply shortage affecting the market and prompting chocolate makers to secure their raw material needs.
Futures prices rose by around 50% in March, almost doubling from the start of the year. Factors such as poor harvests caused by adverse weather conditions and damage caused by pests in West Africa, the world's main supplier of cocoa beans, have put the industry in a difficult situation, Agerpres claims, citing Bloomberg.
These factors have propelled the price of cocoa to $10.000 a tonne, a level that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago, and made cocoa beans more valuable than copper, a benchmark metal in the industry.
The price of chocolate could rise even more
On the New York Stock Exchange, cocoa futures prices rose 2,8 percent on Monday to $9.188. Diana Gomes, analyst at Bloomberg intelligence, suggests that chocolate prices could rise further during Easter 2025, as diseases affecting cocoa trees and adverse weather conditions could prolong the shortage. Added to these are the recent high sugar prices.
At the same time, there is a risk that the supply situation with cocoa beans will worsen, especially considering the new rules that will be implemented in the European Union, which could make it even more difficult to supply the largest chocolate producers with raw material.
Markets' attention is now turning to West Africa, where the smaller of the two annual cocoa bean harvests will soon begin. The regulator in Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest producer, expects there to be a reduced crop of cocoa beans this season.
Article written by Gabriela Dan, Editor of Arta Albă
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