ICE EU cocoa futures fell 8.5% over the past week to close at £4,075 a tonne for the front-month September contract, while ICE US cocoa dropped 7% to $5,543 a tonne. Both markets have seen large moves without much fresh fundamental news behind them, which isn’t unusual at this point in the season, though some hedging activity was tempted in by the recent lows.
Weaker demand is part of the story. Q2 grindings data came in mixed: positive US volumes and strong gains in Asia, but still sluggish figures in Europe, pointing to a slower demand recovery than followed previous price spikes. Combined with no imminent supply shock and no major weather disruption yet, that’s added downside pressure to price.
The bigger question is how much cocoa is actually still sitting unsold in Ivory Coast. Weekly arrivals are starting to slow, as expected for this point in the mid-crop season, but volumes remain more than 20% above last year, reaching 1.992 million tonnes by 9 August. Ivory Coast’s Coffee-Cocoa Council has now concluded its programme to buy up cocoa stuck in cooperative warehouses, adding a further 100,000 tonnes to the total purchased. But market estimates for the volume still left unsold remain far larger than what that programme covered, and there’s real uncertainty over how much of that lingering stock still holds its quality. That overhang, on top of high arrivals, is a big part of what’s been pressuring price.
Fund positioning reflects the same lack of conviction: the latest CFTC data, for the week ending 4 August, showed Managed Money adding a modest 2,213 lots to a net short position of 11,914 lots, roughly in line with where it’s sat since early July.
El Niño is the counterweight. The strengthening event has kept agricultural markets on edge, and while conditions in West Africa haven’t turned remarkable yet, it’s creating a higher price floor across cocoa, sugar and coffee alike. Ghana’s regulator COCOBOD has also flagged that 2026/27 output could fall by as much as 16% on weather, tree-yield cycles, disease and illegal gold mining encroaching on cocoa land, though any estimate this early in the season carries a wide margin of uncertainty.
This news article is part of a broader Vesper market analysis on the global cocoa market. For the full market analysis, visit: https://app.vespertool.com/market-analysis/3319
