Global cocoa prices hit record highs

Cocoa prices continue to soar in the final stretch of the year. Futures for this raw material reached 111,933 dollars per tonne on Tuesday. The market expects that the increase in costs will intensify the financial pressure on chocolate manufacturers and consumers. At the beginning of the year, this raw material had already experienced an increase due to poor harvests in West Africa, a region that is the main producer in the world. This caused a bottleneck that has translated into high cocoa prices throughout the year. The new rise in prices of this raw material has been driven by adverse weather conditions that threaten to further damage crops in the region and hinder the recovery to replenish world cocoa reserves. Cocoa prices have also been hit by the increase in costs that investors have to assume to remain invested in this raw material. Market data indicate that fewer and fewer traders are betting on cocoa futures. This decline in investors could anticipate even higher cocoa ...