The word of the hour that most aptly describes the cocoa industry currently is — without a doubt — ‘volatility’, and this is unfortunately expected to remain the status quo for some time.
Amid this unpredictable backdrop, several other changes are also taking place in the Asia Pacific region, which are set to further alter the state of the cocoa industry for years to come.
“The cocoa industry is constantly facing changes every year, but the difference is that the big challenges usually come one at a time — but in the past two years we’ve basically been hit by everything at once,” Barry Callebaut VP Cocoa APAC Angela Gubser said after the recent Cocoa Association Asia International Cocoa Conference 2026 in Singapore.
“It’s this perfect storm of many things coming together that has made the challenge bigger than usual. I wouldn’t say things are completely back to normal with El Nino still happening and the long-term effects of the past few years yet to be seen, but I feel that the worst is past and it is time for both the cocoa and chocolate sectors to collaborate on the ground to improve conditions and lay out a concrete game plan for the industry’s future.”
Delving into these will require clear acknowledgement of one fact: The challenges and effects resulting from the current volatility in cocoa are extremely different in producer and consumer countries.
APAC has a role on both sides, but the biggest impacts will be seen from a producer perspective.
“Due to the soaring prices, a lot of work has been focused on increasing productivity, but it is important to understand that the price changes do not always mean income increases for the farmers. So we cannot just look at end market prices when it comes to making changes, but also what other benefits can ensure farmers will put in the effort to stick with cocoa-planting on their farms,” she said.
“For APAC and in particular Indonesia which is the region’s biggest cocoa producer, this is particularly relevant as cocoa production faces the additional challenge of competition — and by this I mean competition from other crops. Unlike African countries for example, there are many other crops that cocoa has to compete against here such as durian, rice and palm oil.”
Why Indonesia deserves more attention
Many years ago, Indonesia was the third largest cocoa producer in the world, but was hit by a deluge of factors that forced it out of the running.
“Indonesia cocoa production dropped after the crops were hit by diseases and when other, more profitable crops such as oil palms were introduced to farmers,” she added.
“Asian farmers are amazing at calculating what works best for them and their farms, so once cocoa loses out in terms of profitability and effort-to-returns ratio, they unsurprisingly switched out.”
Today, there is hope of Indonesia climbing up the ranks of cocoa production again and Gubser believes this is an opportunity that the industry must seize and nurture.
“New plant varieties means that the risk of disease is lowered and higher yields can be expected, so profitability goes up and makes cocoa more attractive once again,” she said.
“What is important now is to make it worth the farmers’ while such as initiatives that can help implement better agricultural practices that help to boost yields and returns.”
Returning to ‘normal’
Volatility is acknowledged to be cocoa’s biggest challenge to getting back to normalcy, but this volatility is of course comprised of many different factors.
“The combination of erratic situations in geopolitical, economical, weather and so on are all affecting cocoa supply security, which affects prices and is causing all this volatility – only when supply security goes back up can volatility go down,” said Gubser.
“This is why the most important thing we as an industry need to do right now is really invest in productivity, as this is the only thing that can help increase supply security. This also calls for a lot of learning from past lessons and realising that it simply is not about competing anymore, but really building the industry up together to ensure it has a future.”
A major demographic to mention in this situation is young farmers, as just like with many other agricultural sectors, cocoa is facing its own challenges of finding young blood to continue cocoa farming.
“This comes back again to building up the industry such that farmers actually want to be cocoa farmers, as only then will there be any hope of the industry continuing on and cultivating a new generation of cocoa farmers too,” she said.
“The APAC region is very strong in terms of its agility, and it is very fast paced compared to many other markets — what it really needs now is for its people to be able to perform at their best, so that innovation can be driven based on a clear understanding of what needs changing, where this is needed and when this must be done.”
