Cocoa’s unprecedented surge in 2024

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Cocoa has soared by nearly 185 percent in 2024, outpacing both the US stock market and Bitcoin. Much of the blame lies with severe supply constraints in West Africa – notably Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana – which together produce about 70 percent of the world’s cocoa.

A prolonged stretch of dry weather and a surge in crop diseases have caused a 14.2 percent drop in global cocoa production for the 2023/24 season, pushing supply to its weakest level in six decades. This steep decline has fuelled the largest cocoa deficit in 60 years, turning what was once a plentiful resource into the commodity market’s star performer.