December 5, 2025 (Bloomberg) – Ivory Coast is currently experiencing a temporary surplus of cocoa at its ports. Farmers are looking for buyers due to falling international prices and financial difficulties impacting local exporters.
Ports in Abidjan, the main commercial center, and San Pedro have been overwhelmed with trucks filled with cocoa for the last three weeks. Middlemen are bringing in the beans, eager to find buyers, resulting in weekly cocoa bean arrivals exceeding 100,000 tons, which is higher than usual for this time of year.
This situation could affect market predictions regarding the current season's crop size and drive cocoa prices even lower.
The backlog is partly due to financial challenges faced by authorized exporters. Falling global prices have reduced their earnings, making it tough to fulfill forward contracts that were set at higher levels. Additionally, declining profit margins have made banks hesitant to lend money to these exporters.
This has led middlemen and some cooperatives to transport beans to the ports, prompting the industry regulator’s trading division, Transcao Cote d’Ivoire, to step in and buy the cocoa. Farmers are also anxious that the government may reduce prices following the global price drop, which is driving them to quickly sell their beans, according to Andrew Moriarty, a cocoa expert from market intelligence firm Expana.
“Farmers are essentially gathering everything they can from their trees and rushing it to the ports, which is causing these inflated arrival numbers," Moriarty said. “They are worried that the farm gate price is going to decrease from its current record high.”
Cocoa futures prices have more than halved since last December's peak due to expectations of a larger surplus this season, and strong arrivals from Ivory Coast have reinforced this outlook, putting further pressure on prices.
In response to the congestion, the industry regulator Le Conseil Cafe-Cacao has taken various measures, including temporarily shutting down their system that records arrivals to control the flow of trucks and reduce congestion at the two ports, according to sources. A spokesperson for CCC did not provide immediate comments when contacted.
Farmers have also expressed frustration over delays in receiving delivery notes, which are essential for transporting cocoa from farms to ports. This has left around 120,000 tons of cocoa beans stuck in warehouses, waiting to be loaded for shipment, as reported by Kone Moussa, president of the growers' union, Synapci.
The regulator has also started cracking down on buyers who offer farmers prices below the state-mandated minimum or who are cheating with weight measures. So far, four individuals have been arrested.