MacroSnaps6 August 2026
No. 26Cocoa got so expensive that a tonne of it cost more than a tonne of copper.
Cocoa (orange) and copper (slate) prices, dollars per tonne, 2019 to 2026. A West African harvest crisis sent cocoa above $12,000 a tonne in 2024, briefly topping copper for the first time; copper then set its own record in 2025.
Why this is happening
- Most of the world's cocoa comes from just two countries, Ivory Coast and Ghana, and disease and bad weather wrecked their harvests at the same time.
- Cocoa trees take years to replace, so supply cannot bounce back quickly.
- Once the shortage was obvious, traders piled in and drove the price far past anything seen before.
The take
A crop most people never think about can triple in price because two countries had a bad year. The world's small comforts rest on supply chains far more fragile than they look.
Source: ICE, ICCO, LME (2026)