Cocoa becomes cheaper again after its record prices

BarcelonaThe price of cocoa fell by more than 45% in 2025 after a 2024 marked by a sharp increase due to poor harvests in the main producing country, Ivory Coast, and the entry of speculative funds into wholesale markets. However, for the moment, the cost of chocolate for consumers has not yet adjusted to the decrease in the price of cocoa and remains above the levels of a few years ago.

In January 2024, the cost of a ton of cocoa in the United States was approximately $4,300 (see chart) according to futures contract prices on ICE Futures, the world's leading futures exchange. This price was already higher than that recorded in the immediately preceding ten years, when the cost of a ton of cocoa had fluctuated between $2,000 and $4,000, with some points in 2017 even falling below the $2,000 mark.

From 2024 onwards, however, the cost of a ton of cocoa experienced a sharp rise, culminating in an all-time high in December 2024, when it exceeded $12,600. In other words, the cost practically tripled in just one year.

However, the cost of cocoa has plummeted since then, despite registering a second peak that surpassed $10,000 per ton between mid-May and early June of this year. Since that second surge, the price has continued to fall, and on December 29th, a ton of cocoa cost around $6,200 with a three-month futures contract.

"This sharp drop is explained by two factors: optimistic forecasts for the Ivory Coast harvest and the end of the speculation that drove prices up in 2024," states a report published on December 2nd by Coface for Trade, a US insurer specializing in commodity markets.

Ivory Coast and Ghana (bordering countries in West Africa) account for more than 60% of the world's cocoa production. For several years, demand for cocoa remained strong, but production fell due to the El Niño climate phenomenon and an epidemic of Cocoa Swollen Bud Virus (CSSV) that affected plantations in these two African states. These two events impacted prices, which then led to an appeal to speculative investors, further increasing the cost of cocoa in the futures markets.

For example, according to data collected by the research department of the Dutch bank ING, the 2023-2024 harvest ended with a global cocoa deficit of 500,000 tons—meaning demand exceeded production by half a million tons—while the previous two seasons saw deficits of 0.00 and 200,000 tons. In contrast, the 2024-2025 season has already ended with a surplus of 60,000 tons, and ING expects overproduction to increase to 175,000 tons in 2025-2026.

This overproduction has two opposing causes: on the one hand, the high prices of recent years have encouraged production once the climate and CSSV problems subsided, while on the other hand, the high cost of raw materials has depressed demand. Both of these factors are pushing prices down.

However, another report from JP Morgan – the largest US bank – predicts that the cost per ton will not fall too far below current levels in the medium term, once the price frenzy of 2024 has passed. "We maintain our medium-term forecast at $6,000 per ton through 2025-2026," says the document from the US entity.

Chocolate, still very expensive

As expected, the rise in cocoa prices had a direct effect on the price of chocolate. In Spain, between 2017 and 2021, the price of this product only increased by 2.9% on supermarket shelves, but between January 2022 and November 2025, the price skyrocketed by almost 63%, according to data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the National Institute.

In fact, chocolate is one of the products that has suffered the most from inflation in recent years, and the decrease in the price of raw materials in 2025 has not yet been reflected in the final product price. However, it is expected that once the 2024-2025 harvest is complete, prices will normalize again with the 2025-2026 harvest. Although they will not fall to pre-pandemic levels, they will normalize and register a decline.

A similar case occurred with olive oil, which rose in price very rapidly during 2023 due to drought and other problems in the producing areas of Catalonia and southern Spain, but which in the last two years has registered a steady decrease in price.