In March 2026 the world cocoa price averaged US$3.24 per kilogram. Fourteen months earlier, in January 2025, the same measure had peaked at a monthly average of US$10.75. By August 2026 it was back to US$5.95 [source: World Bank Commodity Markets, 2026]. If you have been waiting for chocolate to get cheaper, that is a confusing sequence: the raw material lost about two-thirds of its value, then recovered much of it, inside eighteen months.
Something else moved in the same period and has not moved back. On 1 September 2026 Côte d'Ivoire's National Traceability System took effect, and the producer card became mandatory for cocoa and coffee purchases [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026]. Indicator prices are cyclical. Traceability obligations are not.
This article therefore separates three things usually reported as one: the international indicator price, the price a farmer is paid, and the cost of proving where a bean grew. Each ran on its own clock between 2023 and 2026, and only the first came back down.
A peak in January 2025, a trough in March 2026
Cocoa
The series quoted above is the ICCO daily price, averaged by month — not a futures settlement record. The ICCO daily price itself averages quotations for the nearest three active trading months on the New York and London terminal markets, and the World Bank publishes its monthly mean [source: World Bank Commodity Markets, 2026]. January 2023 averaged US$2.62 per kilogram; January 2025 topped out at US$10.75, roughly 310% higher.
The descent was faster than the climb. From that peak the monthly average fell to US$3.24 in March 2026, a decline of 69.9%, then reversed: US$4.16 in May, US$5.61 in July, US$5.95 in August 2026, or 83.6% above the trough [source: World Bank Commodity Markets, 2026]. No 2026 annual average exists yet, so 2026 is better described as a path than a number.
That 69.9% converges with figures the origin side produced independently. On 4 March 2026 Côte d'Ivoire's agriculture minister, Bruno Nabagné Koné, said the international cocoa price had collapsed since December 2025, "on the order of 70%". On 5 August 2026 the Conseil du Café-Cacao, the country's coffee and cocoa regulator, put the collapse at more than 70% [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026]. Three routes, one magnitude.
Coffee
Coffee peaked a month later and fell less far. The ICO composite indicator price, the I-CIP, averaged 354.32 US cents per pound in February 2025, the highest monthly reading in the series. The ICO frames the record carefully: "Between February and May 2025, the monthly I-CIP averaged 343.08 US cents/lb, the highest nominal level on record and 29.0% higher than the level attained during the same period in 2026, at 265.89 US cents/lb" [source: ICO Coffee Market Report, 2026]. Nominal is the operative word.
The 2026 low came in June: a monthly average of 248.90 US cents per pound. Inside that month the indicator touched 231.96 on 9 June, its lowest in almost two years, then rose 17.4% to 272.39 by month's end. July and August 2026 averaged 287.26 and 287.29; the first half of September, 268.72 [source: ICO Coffee Market Report, 2026].
By variety, arabica ran from US$9.05 per kilogram in February 2025 to US$6.79 in June 2026, down 25.0%, while robusta fell from US$5.81 to US$3.63, down 37.5%; by August 2026, US$7.97 and US$3.98 [source: ICO Coffee Market Report, 2026]. The World Bank's beverages index compresses the episode: 240.4 in February 2025, 137.7 in March 2026, 176.3 in August 2026, on a 2010 base of 100. Tea, priced on the same tables, went the other way and barely moved — US$3.04 per kilogram in 2024, US$2.91 in 2025, US$2.91 in August 2026 [source: World Bank Commodity Markets, 2026].
Why these two crops moved before almost anything else
Start with how thin the inventory was. ICCO's figures for 2024/25 put world cocoa ending stocks at 1.309 million tonnes, equal to 28.2% of that season's grindings [source: ICCO, 2026]. Coffee's exchange-certified stocks were thinner still: arabica in New York stood at 223,976 bags on 31 August 2026, the lowest since 1999, while London robusta was 0.83 million bags, up 19.5% [source: ICO Coffee Market Report, 2026].
Then add geography. In calendar year 2024, on its own reporting, Ghana exported some 292,755 tonnes of cocoa beans and cocoa products to the European Union — close to 75% of that year's reported global export volume of 512,515 tonnes [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2025]. On the coffee side, USDA's July 2026 assessment notes that Brazil "accounts for nearly 40 percent of world production" [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2026]. Concentration like that turns a regional crop problem into a world price.
Crop conditions in the same window were documented, not inferred. USDA reported that Côte d'Ivoire's mid-crop production of 500,000 tonnes "is below the 10-year average of 550,000 MT and is evidencing poorer bean quality" [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2026], and that "The COCOBOD's own cocoa bean production data highlights Ghana's MY 2023/2024 season as being the worst performing season in the past 15-years" [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2025]. The ICO's report also relayed a 13 August 2026 assessment putting the chance of a very strong El Niño above 90%, and the chance of the strongest since 1950 at 69% [source: ICO Coffee Market Report, 2026]. That is exposure, not a verdict on cause.
What turned the prices around
Coffee's turn is the better documented. After four consecutive coffee years of deficit, from 2021/22 to 2024/25, the ICO projects the global market to record a surplus of 3.0 million bags in 2025/26 [source: ICO Coffee Market Report, 2026]. Under that projection sits production of 183.6 million 60-kg bags — arabica 104.4 plus robusta 79.2 — against apparent consumption of 180.6 million, on a coffee year running October to September.
For the season ahead the numbers are forecasts. USDA's July 2026 outlook projects a record world crop of 189.7 million bags in 2026/27, up 10.8 million, with Brazil at a record 71.9 million of which arabica is 47.5 million — "ending a 5-year period of underperformance due to adverse weather conditions" — alongside Vietnam at 32.5 million and Colombia at 13.4 million [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2026].
Cocoa's 2024/25 accounts moved on both sides of the ledger at once. ICCO reported world gross production up 8.5% year on year to 4.733 million tonnes, world grindings down 3.3% to 4.649 million tonnes, and the global supply surplus estimated at 37,000 tonnes [source: ICCO, 2026]. Those are two parallel movements, not proof that demand was destroyed. For the next season the picture is unavailable: the Secretariat has temporarily withheld the 2025/26 production and grindings data [source: ICCO, 2026].
What stays behind, part one: the price at the farm gate
Côte d'Ivoire's guaranteed minimum farmgate price for cocoa climbed in steps for more than a decade, from 700 F CFA per kilogram in 2012 to a record 2,800 for the 2025/26 main crop, announced by President Alassane Ouattara on 1 October 2025 alongside a coffee price of 1,700 F CFA per kilogram for the same season [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2025]. Five months later, on 4 March 2026, the mid-crop price was set at 1,200.
The regulator showed its arithmetic. At an international price of 1,578 F CFA per kilogram, the formula it applies to the CAF price — cost, insurance and freight, a different basis from an exchange quotation — yielded a farmgate price of 947 F CFA. The President required a figure above 1,000, so 1,200 was set, backed by a state subsidy of 231,247 million F CFA and the regulator's stabilisation reserves [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026].
Two statements made that same day belong together. The government's position — its own assessment, not an independently verified finding — is that the President's commitment to leave producers at least 60% of the CAF price was always respected from 2012 to 2025. In the same setting the regulator's secretary-general, KONE Brahima Yves, explained that the producer card was becoming compulsory because cash-flow strains had too often left farmers paid below the price set by the Government [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026]. How often, and by how much, is not in the record.
For 2026/27 the regulator's homepage banner, accessed on 17 September 2026, shows cocoa at 1,200 F CFA per kilogram and coffee at 1,300 — 57.1% and 23.5% below the 2025/26 levels of 2,800 and 1,700 [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026]. The cocoa figure is identical to the emergency mid-crop level set in March. Separately, the regulator said on 5 August 2026 that it had been instructed to buy 100,000 tonnes of cocoa left in the regions, that 280 billion F CFA was released for it, that the operation was complete, and that it was never a commitment to buy the whole crop [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026].
Ghana's ladder is harder to read because two currencies move at once. COCOBOD, the Ghana Cocoa Board, raised the producer price to GHS 3,228.75 per 64-kg bag on 4 August 2025 — GHS 51,660 per tonne — saying the increase "represents 70% of the gross Free-On-Board (FOB) value of $7,200 per tonne" [source: COCOBOD, 2025]. USDA recorded the same announcement as 68% of FOB [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2025].
In October the two currencies parted. COCOBOD raised the price 12.27% to GHS 3,625 per bag, or GHS 58,000 per tonne, on 2 October 2025 [source: COCOBOD, 2025], while the dollar values USDA published fell from about US$4,901 per tonne for the August price to about US$4,622 for the October one, as the cedi weakened from GHS 10.541 to GHS 12.548 to the dollar [source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2025]. Up in cedi, down in dollars. By mid-2026 the direction had changed again: on 12 June 2026 COCOBOD maintained GH¢2,587.00 per 64-kg bag — GH¢41,392.00 per tonne, GH¢1,241.76 per 30-kg load — with light-crop buying opening on 18 June [source: COCOBOD, 2026].
What stays behind, part two: the cost of proving where a bean grew
The European Union's deforestation regulation, the EUDR, bars products grown on land deforested after 31 December 2020 from the EU market. A Commission notice of 13 July 2026 set out four application dates, the earliest of them 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators, and brought instant, or soluble, coffee into scope [source: European Commission, 2026]. All four dates are scheduled; none has taken effect.
What the timetable costs an origin country is not published in these documents, so exposure stands in for price. Ghana's roughly 75% EU share of its reported cocoa exports is the scale of what must now be documented. The machinery is visible even where its cost is not: Côte d'Ivoire's National Traceability System, in force since 1 September 2026 with the producer card mandatory; the ARS 1000 African regional standard, an ARSO instrument rather than an EU one; Ghana's Cocoa Traceability System; and investments channelled through the FIMR [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2025].
The regulator's framing is that the system exists to show Ivorian coffee and cocoa do not come from deforested areas, and that the card guarantees the producer automatic respect for the state-set price. At a briefing in Gagnoa on 19 August 2026 a regional representative, MIAN Ama Tana Myriam, described the EU rule as applying from 1 January 2027, while the Commission's notice gives 30 December 2026 [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026]. The system has run since 1 September 2026 — far too short a record to judge.
What these numbers do not measure
How, and by how much, raw-material prices moved into supermarket shelf prices is not covered by the primary statistics used here. You may well feel this category at the till; nothing in these documents quantifies that step. Cocoa and coffee are also absent from the FAO Food Price Index, which read 133.3 points in August 2026, up 1.9% on the month — a control on the wider food basket, not evidence about either crop [source: FAO Food Price Index, 2026].
Three further gaps deserve naming. ICCO's 2025/26 production and grindings figures are withheld, so the most recent cocoa season cannot be balanced. No 2026 annual average exists for either crop. And Côte d'Ivoire's forward-sale sessions price something different again: on 15 September 2026 the first session cleared cocoa for October to December 2026 at 3,348 F CFA per kilogram, a forward export basis that is not comparable with the 1,200 F CFA guaranteed minimum paid at the farm [source: Conseil du Café-Cacao, 2026].
What to watch
Four markers carry most of the information from here: whether ICCO restores its 2025/26 series, whether the EUDR's first application date holds on 30 December 2026, what USDA's next coffee assessment says on 16 December 2026, and where the 2026 annual averages settle once they are final.
The pattern underneath is simple. Thin stocks and concentrated origins make a modest supply shock arrive early and hard in a few products, and make the correction abrupt when a large crop finally lands. What the correction does not reverse is the administrative layer built during the spike — or the guaranteed minimum now posted for 2026/27, which sits 57.1% below the record it replaced.