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The price dynamics in the cocoa market remind me of the fountain on Bern’s Federal Square: I know the jets will eventually burst out, but I don’t know when, how forcefully, or in which direction. Whether I end up with just a few refreshing splashes or take refuge soaked in the nearest café will only be decided in the moment.
For people who grow cocoa, however, this unpredictability isn’t a summer game. It determines whether their income will be enough for food, school, or the next harvest.
The chocolate price paradox
While the exchange price of cocoa has seen historic swings since 2022—rising from around US$2,000 per tonne to as much as 12,000 at times, before falling sharply again—chocolate prices in Switzerland have moved in only one direction: up. Manufacturers cite higher costs for raw materials, energy, and labor; at the same time, bars have shrunk in size or prices have risen by more than 10%.
Lindt & Sprüngli is one example: the group has significantly raised its chocolate prices over just a few years—without any meaningful drop in sales. In 2025, revenue and profit margins rose again. For consumers, that means we pay more per bar and often get less for our money.
When chocolate gets more expensive—but farmers stay poor
But what’s far more serious is that what we pay extra often barely benefits cocoa producers.
This is particularly visible in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s two largest cocoa producers. There, despite record prices in recent years, many farmers now receive less money than they would need to produce their cocoa. At the same time, significant quantities of cocoa have recently remained in storage, as traders hesitated to buy in the face of falling world-market prices and public marketing systems sought to prevent a sell-off at very low prices.
Why don’t producers automatically benefit from high prices on commodity exchanges?
Although the cocoa market is organized globally, risks are distributed very unevenly. In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, public marketing boards resell a large share of the harvest in advance to guarantee producers stable farmgate prices. However, when global prices surged in 2024, many of these contracts had already been concluded at significantly lower prices. Afterwards, exchange prices fell sharply again, while traders and processors sought to source more cheaply or turned to other countries of origin.
On top of that come financial speculation, currency fluctuations, climate risks, and diseases affecting cocoa cultivation. When prices rise, farmers therefore often benefit from this additional income only with a delay. By contrast, when prices fall, losses are quickly passed along the supply chain—right down to the producers themselves.
Sustainability starts with income
The real consequences of this dynamic are felt far beyond the market. It is virtually impossible to effectively tackle deforestation, child labor, or precarious working conditions as long as many cocoa producers do not earn an income that allows them to make ends meet. When families are effectively forced to choose between feeding themselves, sending their children to school, or preserving old trees, that is not genuine freedom of choice.
This is exactly where the idea of a “reference price for a living income” comes in. Instead of simply accepting the market price, this concept asks a different question: what price would be necessary for a household practicing sustainable cocoa farming to truly live with dignity?
This shift in perspective is essential, because it reverses the market logic: it is no longer producers’ income that must adapt to the global market, but the price that must align with the real costs of living and production.
What milk and chocolate reveal about global inequality
In Switzerland, we know these kinds of mechanisms very well, even if we rarely call them that. Consumers may pay CHF 1.80 for a liter of milk in the store, but producers receive only a portion of it. Since production costs are higher than the market price, the state covers part of the difference through direct payments and other support instruments.
In the cocoa sector, such a safety net hardly exists. Cocoa is produced primarily for global export markets; the social and environmental costs associated with low commodity prices are therefore largely externalized along the supply chain—right down to the producers themselves.
This is particularly evident with chocolate: while parts of the Swiss value chain—such as dairy production or infrastructure—are indirectly supported by the state, cocoa often comes from a system in which many producers sometimes cannot even cover their production costs. Low cocoa producer incomes thus effectively act as a hidden cross-subsidy for cheap chocolate.
Another market is possible
On Bern’s Federal Square, you can dodge the water jets with a laugh. In the global cocoa market, it’s different: it’s not chance that decides who gets soaked, but power exercised along the supply chain.
Alternative models, such as “bean-to-bar” chocolate, show that other trading relationships are possible. Instead of relying mainly on anonymous commodity markets, many of these chocolate makers focus on direct relationships with cocoa producers, transparent pricing, and long-term collaboration. This market is still modest, but it continues to grow thanks to distribution platforms such as CriolloQuetzal, demonstrating that quality, transparency, and higher incomes are not necessarily incompatible.
Ultimately, behind all of this lies the same political question: who do we grant the right to an income that allows a dignified life—and who do we not?
In Europe, we have agreed that full-time work should not automatically mean poverty. For many people who grow our raw materials, however, that promise still applies only to a limited extent today. As long as companies can sell chocolate whose raw materials were produced for an income below the subsistence threshold, the right to a dignified life along global supply chains will remain largely optional. Who can accept that?
