Why African Cocoa Growers Are Having an OPEC Moment

The world’s top cocoa producers have long been at the mercy of traders who set cocoa prices thousands of miles away in London and New York. Now the producers are trying to do something about it. West African neighbors Ivory Coast and Ghana, which grow about 60 percent of the world’s cocoa, have outlined wide-ranging plans to cooperate on production and marketing in hopes of gaining more influence over global prices. But some industry analysts remain skeptical.

To regulate global supply and grab more of the profit from the chocolate-making value chain, Ghana and Ivory Coast say they’ll coordinate production levels, bring their sales policies closer together and make sure that more of the crop is processed locally before it’s shipped out. They’ll also build warehouses to hold surplus beans and increase spending on marketing in an effort to boost consumption of the chocolate ingredient in their own region and in other emerging markets.