Cocoa
QUIETStress 2/10
- Daloa: week-ahead forecast shows wet rainfall
- 3 stories point to tighter supply this week (3 of 4 headlines)
- El Nino pattern in the Pacific (ONI +1.80, JJA 2026) — shifts rainfall in growing regions
Guided scenario
What if West Africa's cocoa belt dries out?
Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana anchor the West African cocoa belt. Explore what another dry stretch would expose.
1The setup
Côte d'Ivoire (28.9%), the top exporter, and Ghana (7.8%) together account for 36.7% of world cocoa exports by value (2024 vintage). When West Africa's belt has a bad season, the chocolate supply chain feels it first. This guide walks through what the monitor is seeing right now, how exposed the market is, and lets you model a drought yourself.
2Right now
Monitor data as of Sep 24, 2026. Scores are observed readings, not forecasts.
3The exposure
Disruption hits:
- Côte d'Ivoire28.9%
- Ecuador22.5%
- Nigeria11.8%
- Ghana7.8%
- Netherlands7.2%
How the shock travels
Follow the shock downstream — from the cocoa market, through processors, to the shelf. These are the usual stages, not this scenario's outcome: exposure at each step, never a prediction.
Day 0: cocoa futures spike
timing not establishedLag basis: Day 0 is the shock itself; no lag applies.
cocoa beansChocolate manufacturers buy cocoa liquor, butter and powder
timing not establishedLag basis: lag not established in sources reviewed
cocoa liquorcocoa buttercocoa powderHershey
HSYCocoa liquor, cocoa butter and cocoa powder are major raw materials; Hershey hedges cocoa price risk over 3- to 24-month windows via forward purchasing and futures (Q2 2025 10-Q).
Source: Hershey Q2 2025 10-Q (IR)
Mondelez
MDLZPurchases large quantities of cocoa for its chocolate brands including Cadbury and Milka; its Q3 2024 10-Q notes the ICE cocoa-bean market price was 79% higher on the last trading day of Q3 2024 than a year earlier.
Source: Mondelez Q3 2024 10-Q (IR)
Retail chocolate aisle
timing not establishedLag basis: lag not established in sources reviewed
chocolate barscandy
Illustrative scenario. Not a prediction. Not financial advice. Company entries describe factual exposure to the commodity — not a view on any stock.
Trade map
Who ships it, who can’t do without it
2024 vintage · annual data, 1–2y lagSourced trade structure — the scenario’s shock geography at country resolution. Exposure, not a forecast.
Cocoa · Côte d'Ivoire + Ghana
Top exporters
Côte d'Ivoiredominant
28.9% of world exports
Ecuadordominant
22.5% of world exports
Nigeria
11.8% of world exports
Ghana
7.8% of world exports
Netherlands
7.2% of world exports
Note: cocoa beans, whole/broken; Netherlands/Belgium are re-export hubs (Amsterdam), not producers — flag, do not present as origin
Exposed importers
Shocked exporters: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana
22.2% of Germany’s cocoa imports come from Côte d'Ivoire
22.1% of Netherlands’s cocoa imports come from Côte d'Ivoire
West Africa bean exports to Europe
via North Atlantic (no single canal chokepoint)
No single corridor — share not applicable — West Africa to Europe bean shipments are bulk ocean freight with no single canal chokepoint. No route share applies -- this is not missing research.
How we map this
Exporter and importer shares are 2024 vintage · annual data, 1–2y lag from UN Comtrade and OEC (BACI/CEPII); an importer counts as exposed when ≥20% of its cocoa imports come from a shocked exporter. The shock geography is the scenario’s own focus selection. Annual data with a 1–2 year reporting lag — the structure moves slowly, the prices don’t.
4Adjust the assumptions
70%
Historical check: The closest episode, West Africa cocoa, 2023–24, saw cocoa futures move +352.3% (extreme band); your 70% disruption setting sits in the large band.
What share of Côte d'Ivoire + Ghana’s cocoa exports is disrupted.
Resolution: Share of the focus exporter's shipments disrupted
Share of world exports
0%50%100% of world exports
Côte d'Ivoire + Ghana cocoa — 36.7% of world Cocoa exports (Share of global export value (USD) — 2024 vintage)
Exposed under your assumptions: 25.7% (36.7% × 70% severity)
The hatched area is modeled from your assumptions, not a measured outcome.
Exposed ≠ lost — affected trade can reroute, draw stocks, or substitute. This sizes the exposure, not the damage.
120d
Historical check: The closest episode, West Africa cocoa, 2023–24, lasted 700 days (long); your 120-day duration sits in the medium band.
Resolution: Days the disruption lasts
60d
Your assumption — not a measured buffer.
Resolution: Assumed days of stockpile cover — an assumption, not a measured buffer
Disruption timeline
090180270365 days
Disruption: 120 days
Assumed cover: 60 days — your assumptionYour assumption
60 days buyers can't ride out — not automatically a physical shortage
What this would have meant
At these settings, about 25.7% of the world's cocoa exports would be exposed to the disruption, and the disruption runs 120 days against 60 days of assumed stockpile cover, leaving about 60 days beyond what the assumed stockpile covers.
The closest recorded episode, West Africa cocoa, 2023–24, saw cocoa futures rise +352.3% in 700 days (Jan 2023 → Dec 2024), and for consumers: candy and chewing gum (CPI, US) rose +7.6% to +18.4% (no lag window was published for this episode). Illustrative — what happened then, not what will happen now.
Your settings aren't an exact match: your 70% disruption setting implies a large move, while the episode's futures move was +352.3% (extreme).
What this assumes
- Exposure: Target share 36.7% × severity 70% = 25.7% exposed.
- Uncovered days: max(0, 120 − 60) = 60.
- Exposed ≠ lost: affected trade can reroute, draw down stocks, or find substitutes — this number sizes the exposure, not the damage.
- Exporter share ≠ spare capacity: rivals may not be able to surge supply to fill the gap.
- Combined share is the sum of the focus exporters' individual shares — a scenario hitting all of them at once.
- Stockpile cover of 60 days is your assumption, not a measured buffer.
- Results are physical-exposure arithmetic from your stated assumptions — not a price forecast.
Analog check
Your settings look closest to West Africa cocoa, 2023–24 (same commodity, same shock type, similar supply concentration). The episode's measured moves, caveats included: cocoa futures +352.3% in 700 days (Jan 2023 → Dec 2024); Candy and chewing gum (CPI, US): the retail move wasn't measured for this episode — the futures leg above and the farm-share bound below are all we can honestly say. Sugar, labor, packaging and freight also move the candy index; manufacturers hedge cocoa months ahead, delaying shelf impact..
Only about 11.8¢ of every US consumer food dollar — and 18.5¢ of every food-at-home dollar — reaches the farm (USDA, 2024) — that's a ceiling, not a prediction: margins can absorb a spike or amplify it.
Illustrative — what happened then, not what will happen now. Your scenario differs: your 70% disruption setting implies a large move, while the episode's futures move was +352.3% (extreme).
Read the full recordHow we matched this
- Commodity: requirement — Both are cocoa — non-cocoa episodes are excluded outright.
- Shock type: 2/2 — Both are a drought shock.
- Size: 0/1 — Your 70% disruption setting band: large; episode futures moved +352.3% (Jan 2023 → Dec 2024) — band: extreme. Severity is % of shipments disrupted, not a price move: this banding is a v1 matching heuristic.
- Duration: 0/1 — Your disruption: 120-day (medium); episode: 700-day (long) — Jan 2023–Dec 2024 futures run-up window (repo event record west-africa-cocoa-2023).
- Supply concentration: 1/1 — Your hazard zone: 36.7% of world exports (high); episode disrupted ~60% (high) — Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana ≈ 60% of world cocoa production and exports (ICCO — repo event record west-africa-cocoa-2023).
Score 3/5 — partial analog (mismatches named above).
Want the full controls? Reopen cocoa on its commodity page.
5What happened before
For perspective, not prediction
2023–24: West Africa's cocoa deficit — the fourfold repricing
2023 – Dec 2024
“Three straight deficits — dry weather, disease, and years of underinvestment — repriced cocoa more than fourfold in under two years. Then high prices did what high prices do: grindings fell, supply recovered, and a third of the peak vanished in a quarter.”
Price moves were observed around the event — not proof the event caused the entire move.
Read the full recordEl Niño: the climate driver that doesn't always deliver
Recurring — 2009-10, 2015-16, 2023-24
“El Niño moves the weather, not always the price. In 2015–16 wheat fell sharply but tracked outcomes were mixed (rice +7.7%, soy +2.1%) while sugar spiked — fear the mechanism, measure the outcome.”
Price moves were observed around the event — not proof the event caused the entire move.
Read the full recordWhat to watch
- Rainfall reports from Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana's cocoa belt through the main-crop season
- ICCO quarterly balances — the 2023/24 deficit was the biggest in 60+ years
- Disease and crop-condition reports for West African cocoa
- ICE cocoa futures relative to the December 2024 record near $12,931/ton
Curated by Morrowfly — these are things to check, not monitor conditions.
Make it yours
Your call, in your words — recorded privately on this device, with a check-back in 30, 60, or 90 days.
Tell us
Spotted something wrong, confusing, or missing? It goes straight into our improvement queue.
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Read by a human · never auto-published