The South American country hopes to expand its role as Swiss chocolate makers seek more resilient and diversified sources of cocoa.
After two consecutive poor cocoa harvests in West Africa, in 2023-2024 and 2025-2026, Switzerland’s chocolate industry has been forced to confront a longstanding vulnerability: its dependence on a small number of suppliers for one of its key raw materials.
Cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together account for around 60% of global supply, was hit by adverse weather conditions, pests and diseases. The 2023-2024 crop was further affected by the El Niño climate phenomenon, which brought droughts, excessive rainfall and unusually high temperatures, reducing yields and worsening disease outbreaks.
As a result, the raw material behind Switzerland’s most famous culinary export saw its average international price rise from roughly US$2,500 (CHF2,030) per tonne in 2022 to a record of more than US$10,000 per tonne in 2024, according to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) futures data. Although prices have since retreated, they remain highly volatile as the market continues to respond to uncertainty over global supply.
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The cocoa price shock has also affected major Swiss companies. Barry CallebautExternal link, the world’s largest chocolate manufacturer, reported lower sales volumes as cocoa prices soared in 2025.
“The increase in prices recorded in recent years made the industry realise that there is a huge dependence on West Africa, particularly Côte d’Ivoire,” says Christian Robin, managing director of the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa. “I believe that, in the coming years, Africa will remain extremely relevant. But, of course, companies are trying to diversify more. This is a clear trend, involving countries such as Peru, Ecuador and, of course, Brazil.”
The relevance of the issue for Switzerland goes far beyond the symbolism of chocolate. According to Chocosuisse (Swiss Association of Chocolate Manufacturers), the sector generates around CHF2.2 billion per year and the country exports more than 70% of its national production.
Data from the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa indicate that the country processes approximately 57,000 tonnes of cocoa annually, a raw material imported from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. As a result, the crop failures that affected main producers in recent years quickly became a concern for one of Switzerland’s most traditional industries.
This year, cocoa prices have eased as weather conditions improved. Even so, prices remain well above the levels seen before the West African crisis, indicating that the market continues to face structural pressures.
Crisis exposes vulnerabilities in the global supply chain
According to Robert Finger, professor of agricultural economics and policy at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, the decline in African cocoa harvests reflects some of the growing resilience challenges faced by agricultural and food systems, driven, among other factors, by the increasing relevance of extreme weather events and the resulting crop losses, as well as market and institutional risks.
Cocoa is particularly vulnerable to climate change because it depends on relatively stable temperature and rainfall conditions and is concentrated in a narrow tropical belt.
For Finger, Swiss chocolate companies will need to adapt and seek new suppliers, even if that implies higher costs.
“Diversification of production, sourcing and income sources is certainly a viable strategy for dealing with these challenges. However, diversification always comes at a cost. When activities are diversified, cost advantages generally cannot be fully exploited, and transaction costs increase,” he says.
Source: Swissinfo
