Demand for cocoa is steadily climbing, driven primarily by the growing world population, rapid development of emerging markets and rising incomes. Although distributed and used in products available all over the world, around 70 percent of the global cocoa supply currently originates from three producing countries in the equatorial belt – Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia.
Supply and Demand Imbalance on the HorizonAccording to Credit Suisse data, global demand on average has been growing by about 2.5 percent per year over the past ten years.
Cocoa and chocolate producer Barry Callebaut believe this ongoing upward trend will threaten to outpace supply by as much as one million metric tons by 2020. “With current demand levels, cocoa stocks are still ample. However, we note a falling trend in the ratio of cocoa inventory to grinding, which indicates effective tightening of the supply picture,” says Credit Suisse’s Joe Prendergast.
via Credit Suisse – Are We on the Brink of a Chocolate Supply Crisis?.
