Record Chocolate Sales Boosting Cocoa Demand to Leave Shortages

Record chocolate sales are boosting cocoa demand and prices as bean supplies lag behind demand for a second year.

Output will be 129,000 metric tons smaller than demand in the 12 months starting Oct. 1, Euan Mann, director at the London-based Complete Commodity Solutions Ltd., said at the European Cocoa Association conference in Istanbul this week. That follows a shortage of 119,000 tons a year earlier. Chocolate sales will rise 6.2 percent to a record $117 billion next year, researcher Euromonitor International Ltd. estimates.