Cocoa prices snapped higher last week, with ICE London front-month July futures up 11% to £3,488 a tonne and ICE New York up 11% to $4,545 a tonne. After months of trading a near-term supply glut, the market has turned to the uncertainty hanging over 2026/27 production, and El Niño is now front of mind.
Two developments drove the shift. Ivory Coast’s authorities halted sales for the 2026/27 main crop once forward volumes hit 1.15 million tonnes, a move that put a floor under prices and signalled caution over the season ahead. And forecasters’ rising conviction in a strong El Niño has revived memories of past events: in 2015/16, Ecuador saw production losses of up to 24%, while the 2023/24 episode brought too much early rain followed by heat and dryness.
For now, plenty of cocoa is still arriving. Ivory Coast port arrivals are running around 18% above last season, and there is talk that large volumes of unsold beans remain to be sold, with one government census cited at 350,000 tonnes of unsold stock. That overhang could lift full-season 2025/26 output estimates beyond 2 million tonnes and may cap the rally in the near term. At the same time, West African growing regions are reporting above-average rain, welcome at first but now raising some disease risk into the close of the mid-crop.
The product side has moved with the beans. Cocoa mass and cocoa butter prices have both gained 22% over the past month, while cocoa powder is up 15%, with processing ratios broadly unchanged. Strong bean supply and lower year-on-year pricing point to higher grindings, which should keep product markets well supplied.
Vesper expects a weather market to persist in the coming weeks, with rainfall over the Ivorian crop the key input through the end of July. Some indicators already look overbought, leaving room for a near-term pullback even as the longer-term supply story turns more uncertain.
For the full cocoa market analysis, visit: https://app.vespertool.com/market-analysis/3135?commodity=cocoa