Sensarom enters Trade in Cocoa: The world Cocoa shortage stimulates rising demand for Asian origin cocoa
Most of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa, and since 2023, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana have suffered large-scale crop failures, causing the world to face the worst cocoa shortage crisis in 60 years. Other cocoa producing regions of the world are South America, Indonesia and Southeast Asia, which are unable to keep with the rising demands of cocoa beans for processing. This has led to the demand of cocoa beans to drastically increase. Due to similar shortages in India for dried fermented cocoa beans, Sensarom took the opportunity to explore southeast Asia to source cocoa beans for its customers.
Fact-check: Last year, chocolate consumption exceeded cocoa production by a staggering 70,000 metric tons. Projections suggest that by 2030, the cocoa deficit could soar to 2 million metric tons.
Fact-check: Cocoa prices reached a historic high of nearly $10,000 per metric ton in 2024, pushing chocolate prices up over the past year.
We at team Sensarom had the opportunity to travel in South-east Asia to source different varieties of the species Theobroma cacao.
We indeed had a deep dive before our ventures and were intrigued with the cocoa farms.
Did you know that there are a different grade of cocoa beans (depending on the beans size and climatic conditions) and different varieties (hybrids within the species) that determine the quality and sensory attributes of the beans. They are also sorted based on regulatory and international standards such as FSSAI, ISO22000, Phytosanitary Fumigation check approvals. We worked with various Laboratory testing houses in getting the batches approved and tested based on all relevant analytical/chemical and physical parameters for import/export.
The above images are from our ventures in south-east Asia, at the cocoa farms. The various stages of collecting the cocoa pods from the farms, sorting the cocoa beans based on their quality, drying the beans, fermenting and drying the beans are shown above.
We were successful in 2024 in importing superior quality cocoa beans and 3 varieties of cocoa powders for our customers in India at affordable prices.
Key Factors Contributing to the world Deficit:
- Surging Chocolate Consumption: Particularly in developing countries, the appetite for chocolate has significantly increased.
- Preference for Dark Chocolate: Dark chocolate, which requires over seven times more cocoa than milk chocolate, has grown in popularity.
- Climatic Challenges: Rising temperatures are making it increasingly difficult to cultivate cocoa.
- Disease Outbreak: A disease known as ‘frosty pod’ has wreaked havoc in West Africa—the heartland of cocoa production—destroying nearly 40% of the global cocoa supply.
