Nobody is suffering more from a global chocolate standoff than the Ivory Coast cocoa farmer.
Less than two years after the top cocoa producer teamed up with neighboring Ghana to force companies from Hershey Co. to Nestle SA to pay more for their beans, the attempt to exert control over prices is backfiring. Buyers are refusing to pay up, beans are piling in warehouses upcountry and farmers are so desperate that some even slept outside the offices of Ivory Coast’s cocoa regulator demanding action.
“We have suffered with our cocoa piling up,” said Baba Kampe, a 45-year-old farmer with 8 hectares (20 acres) in Daloa who was among those sleeping outside the regulator’s offices Monday. “It has been difficult to feed our children.”
The cooperation to charge the $100 billion chocolate industry a premium of $400 per metric ton was intended to boost income for some of the world’s poorest growers, the West African nations said.
But for many cocoa traders, processors and chocolate makers, it was an OPEC-style attempt to boost prices that lacked the supply-and-demand economics key to that cartel’s success.
Farmers now are paying the price. Ivory Coast and Ghana, which account for almost 70% of world supplies, expanded output just as the pandemic locked down cities from Paris to Los Angeles, hurting demand.