Cocoa: Stocks
The single number that matters most in cocoa
What this tab covers How much is left and how much is held. For minerals and energy: reserves, current output, years of supply and recycling for the top five countries. For farm commodities: production, ending stocks and stocks-to-use for the top five producers (USDA, October 2026). It also covers inventories and stockpiles.Recycling
Cocoa is not recycled. Stocks are the buffer: ICCO puts end-2024/25 stocks at 1.309 Mt, 28.2% of grindings, after a 2023/24 deficit of 492,000 t cut the ratio to 26.4% (ICCO, Feb and Aug 2026). Beans keep about a couple of months in the tropics at 7.5% moisture, longer in temperate warehouses. Côte d'Ivoire's regulator inventoried 100,000 t of unsold main-crop beans in January 2026 and set aside CFA 280 billion to buy them. India keeps no public cocoa stock.
Dried beans keep for a year or more in good warehouses, and stocks are the key balancing item. Geman calls the stocks-to-use figure the most important number in the market. Exchange-certified stocks in Europe and the United States are watched closely. Demand is tracked through quarterly grind data, which has grown harder to read as more grinding moves to producing countries. The International Cocoa Organization publishes the world balance each year, and Geman notes its statistics are released at the ICCO conference in London.