Global cocoa prices remain under broad downward pressure this week, drifting around $3,133 per tonne in New York and £2,328 per tonne in London, as improving supply conditions and persistently weak demand outweigh a brief rally triggered by the Strait of Hormuz crisis.
Cocoa futures rallied in early March on concerns that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz would raise shipping costs and disrupt exports, with May New York contracts jumping more than 4.8 percent in a single session. However, the gain has since largely faded as traders refocused on market fundamentals.
Those fundamentals continue to point in one direction. StoneX has forecast a global cocoa surplus of 287,000 tonnes for the 2025/26 season, with an additional surplus of 267,000 tonnes expected for 2026/27, reflecting a sharp turnaround from the historic deficit of 494,000 tonnes recorded in 2023/24, which was the largest in over 60 years.
Demand has emerged as the weakest pillar of the current market. Barry Callebaut AG, the world’s largest bulk chocolate maker, reported a 22 percent decline in cocoa division sales volumes for the quarter ending November 30, 2025. European grindings fell 8.3 percent year-on-year in the final quarter of 2025, the lowest fourth-quarter figure in 12 years, while Asian grindings fell 4.8 percent over the same period. The disconnect between falling raw material costs and still-elevated retail chocolate prices continues to suppress consumption.
The governance crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is adding a structural dimension to market uncertainty. Falling global prices have created a mismatch with the country’s fixed farmgate pricing system, triggering defaults on an estimated 100,000 tonnes of purchase contracts and forcing state-backed intervention to absorb excess supply estimated at up to 200,000 tonnes. The episode has raised questions about the long-term viability of the fixed-price model in a more volatile global environment.
For Ghana, structural financing constraints remain unresolved. The crisis earlier this year exposed deep institutional fragility at the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), which entered the 2025/26 season carrying an estimated 60 billion cedis in total liabilities, including 17.8 billion cedis in loans and 26.5 billion cedis in cocoa road contracts awarded between 2014 and 2024. Farmers who delivered cocoa in November and December 2025 had not been paid by mid-February 2026, with some forced to borrow from traders at punitive rates to survive.
The government responded in February with a package that included a farmgate price reset from 58,000 cedis per tonne to 41,392 cedis, a new Cocoa Bond domestic financing model, a 50 percent local processing mandate for the 2026/27 season, and the revival of state-owned processor CPC. A new bill to link farmgate prices to a minimum of 70 percent of the gross free on board (FOB) price is also before parliament.
The market outlook for the coming week is neutral to bearish. Weather remains the only credible catalyst for a short-term price recovery, with secondary risks including black pod disease and quality deterioration if drying conditions worsen during the mid-crop period starting in April.
