Cocoa
ICE
The chocolate bean that quadrupled in 2024 and shattered a record that had stood since 1977.
Top Producers
share of 2025/26 production
Top Consumers
share of world cocoa grindings by region
Main Uses
world cocoa use by end product
Top Exporters
share of 2025/26 cocoa bean exports
Top Importers
share of cocoa bean imports (grinder and processor destinations)
World production
roughly 4.5 to 5 million tonnes
as of 2025
Ivory Coast plus Ghana share
roughly 60 percent
as of 2025
All-time high
near $13,000 per tonne (December 2024)
as of 2025
Previous record
$5,379 per tonne (July 1977)
as of 2025
Typical pre-2024 range
roughly $2,000 to $3,500 per tonne
as of 2025
Cocoa is the most geographically concentrated major commodity on earth: Ivory Coast and Ghana together grow roughly 60 percent of the world crop on millions of smallholder farms in a narrow West African forest belt, with Ecuador, Cameroon, and Nigeria following. That concentration produced the defining commodity event of 2024. Decades of underinvestment, aging trees, swollen shoot virus, black pod disease, and a poorly timed mix of harmattan winds and heavy rain collapsed back-to-back West African harvests, and the New York ICE cocoa contract went vertical: from roughly $4,200 per tonne at the start of 2024 to above $12,000 in April, with the December 2024 peak near $13,000 per tonne. The previous all-time record, $5,379 from July 1977, had stood for 47 years and was obliterated in a few weeks.
The squeeze exposed a structurally broken supply side. Ivory Coast and Ghana fix farmgate prices through state marketing boards, so farmers captured little of the rally and had little incentive or capital to replant; Ghana's COCOBOD was forced to roll forward contracted deliveries it could not fulfill. Grinders and chocolate makers, facing exchange stocks at multi-decade lows, paid up or shrank bar sizes. Hedging itself buckled: margin calls on short futures positions drove commercial traders out of the market, collapsing open interest and amplifying the spike. Prices retreated through 2025, trading near $5,000 per tonne by November 2025, as Ecuadorian expansion and better West African weather rebuilt supply, but the market consensus is that the era of $2,500 cocoa is over: EU deforestation rules, disease pressure, and climate stress in the West African belt have permanently raised the cost of the marginal tonne.
The futures architecture is two-headed. ICE Futures U.S. trades the dollar-denominated world benchmark, 10 tonnes per contract with delivery in northeastern US ports; ICE Futures Europe trades the former LIFFE London contract in sterling, historically the hedge for West African cargoes. Both settle physically, and the certified stocks in exchange warehouses are the market's most watched inventory gauge. Demand is a grind: beans are processed into cocoa liquor, butter, and powder, and quarterly grind statistics from Europe, North America, and Asia are the demand-side data the market trades.
How It Trades
| Venue | ICE Futures U.S. (New York); ICE Futures Europe lists the sterling-denominated London contract |
| Benchmark contract | Cocoa futures (CC) |
| Contract size | 10 tonnes |
| Price terms | US dollars per tonne |
| Settlement | Physical delivery of exchange-graded beans at licensed warehouses in the US Northeast (New York contract) |
| Typical curve | Modest carry in normal years; 2024 produced an extreme backwardation as certified stocks fell to multi-decade lows |
| Liquidity | Liquid but thinner since 2024: margin stress halved open interest during the squeeze and commercial participation is still rebuilding |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global cocoa futures volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- Ivory Coast: roughly 1.8 to 2.2 million tonnes, about 40 percent of the world crop
- Ghana: roughly 0.55 to 0.7 million tonnes, down sharply from its 1-million-tonne peak years
- Ecuador: roughly 0.4 to 0.5 million tonnes and rising fast, the main growth origin
- Cameroon and Nigeria: roughly 0.25 to 0.3 million tonnes each
- Indonesia: roughly 0.15 to 0.2 million tonnes, in long decline
Smallholder economics are the core constraint: state-fixed farmgate prices in Ivory Coast and Ghana mute the supply response that the 2024 price explosion would otherwise have triggered.
Top consumers
- European Union (largest grinding and consuming region)
- United States
- Asia (fastest growth, led by Indonesia and India grindings)
- Brazil
Major uses
- Grinding into cocoa liquor, butter, and powder for chocolate
- Cocoa butter in confectionery and cosmetics
- Cocoa powder in baking, beverages, and ice cream
What Moves the Price
- West African weather: harmattan dryness, rainy-season timing, and El Nino cycles
- Tree disease: swollen shoot virus and black pod in Ivory Coast and Ghana
- State farmgate price policy in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which controls replanting incentives
- Certified exchange stocks and the quarterly grind data from Europe, North America, and Asia
- Ecuadorian production growth, the supply-side relief valve
- EU deforestation regulation traceability requirements
- Speculative and margin dynamics, which amplified the 2024 move as commercial shorts capitulated
Moments That Made the Market
1925
New York cocoa futures begin trading, the lineage of today's ICE contract.
1977
Cocoa sets its 20th-century record of $5,379 per tonne after West African crop failures.
2000-2002
A hedge fund accumulation squeeze and Ivorian civil conflict double prices.
2013
The London cocoa contract becomes an ICE Futures Europe product with the LIFFE acquisition.
2024
West African crop collapse: New York cocoa breaks the 1977 record, tops $12,000 in April, and peaks near $13,000 per tonne in December.
2025
Prices retreat to near $5,000 per tonne by November as Ecuador expands and weather improves, still well above the pre-2024 range.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- The 47-year-old price record fell by a factor of more than two; cocoa repriced to a permanently higher range.
- Ghana's sector entered structural crisis: disease, gold-mining land loss, and smuggling cut output far below its peak.
- Ecuador emerged as the credible third origin, the first real diversification of supply in decades.
- Margin-driven liquidity collapse showed that hedging itself can fail in an extreme squeeze, a lesson for every physical trader.
- EU deforestation rules made farm-level traceability a condition of access to the largest consuming market.
- LIFFE's London cocoa contract became an ICE Futures Europe product in 2013.