When cocoa prices fell below $4000 in February 2026, a decline of more than 60 per cent from the peak it recorded barely a year earlier, the market reaction was just as revealing as the rally that preceded it. The same industry that had been treated as a windfall suddenly looked vulnerable. Revenue forecasts were revised downward, balance sheets were reassessed, and operators across the cocoa value chain were evaluated through the same price-driven lens: if cocoa prices were falling, then cocoa businesses must be less attractive.
It is a tidy framework. For a narrow category of businesses, it is also the right one. But applied to a vertically integrated operator – one that controls the value chain from the farm gate through processing to export logistics- it is measuring the wrong thing. A price crash may reduce the value of raw beans, but it can also change the economics
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