Cocoa prices have trended higher over the past year due in part to recent heavy rainfalls in West Africa, which caused widespread of so-called black pod disease. The pace of contamination by the disease, which causes cocoa pods to turn black and rot, could result in lower cocoa crop quality and production and push the global cocoa market into a third year of deficit for the 2023/24 season.

Prices for cocoa rose to the highest level ever on Tuesday, October 24, as demand for the beans appeared to be holding well despite the constant increase in costs. Cocoa brokers said other positive fundamentals are the slow arrival of cocoa at ports in West Africa and the fact that the global supply balance is heading for a third consecutive deficit. December New York cocoa settled up $44, or 1.2%, at $3,826 a ton after peaking at $3,880/ton.

Speculative investors were said to be the main driver of prices on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, where the March cocoa contract rose by another 0.2% and hit a peak of 3,356 pounds a metric ton, the highest price since cocoa futures started trading there in 1920.