The price of cocoa has surged to its highest in the last 46 years on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, meaning the cost of chocolate could soar, according to industry analysis.
The spike is attributed to recent heavy rain in West Africa that damaged crops and slowed down the mid-crop harvest and truck shipments in the Ivory Coast.
The benchmark September contract for cocoa in London gained more than two per cent to 2,590 pounds per metric ton.
Ivory Coast farmers shipped 29,910 tons of key chocolate ingredient cocoa to ports for June 19-25, up 16 per cent year on year.
On Monday, the Ivory Coast government reported that farmers sent a cumulative 2.22MMT of cocoa to Ivory Coast ports for the 2022/23 marketing year (October 1 through June 18), down 2.2 per cent year on year.
The Ivory Coast is the largest cocoa producer in the world.
