Cocoa bean stocks in London and New York have fallen to a record low, the Financial Times reported, a sign of a severe shortage of the commodity after several years of poor harvests.
Cocoa stocks in the warehouses of the London ICE Futures exchange have decreased from more than 100,000 tons to almost 20,000 tons.
Traders and chocolate producers are buying up even low-quality cocoa stocks en masse, as the global market has suffered from poor harvests in producing countries such as Côte d’Ivoire over the past few years. These are often cocoa beans from Cameroon or Nigeria, considered lower quality in the chocolate industry.
For example, last month, Hershey Co. requested permission from the regulator to purchase up to 90 thousand tons of cocoa through the New York Stock Exchange, 9 times the established limit.