Martin Gilmour, director of Chase Cocoa Consulting, has warned that the market may face several more years of constrained supply and elevated prices.
“I think we're into high permanent high prices. I think there are going to be shortages for the next few years,” Gilmour told this month’s London Chocolate Forum.
The former global head of agriculture at Barry Callebaut and research director for cocoa sustainability at Mars said his assessment was a forecast rather than a certainty. However, it rests on long-term production problems that a single improved harvest cannot resolve.
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Structural Pressure on Supply
West Africa’s cocoa sector faces ageing trees, inadequate replanting, limited distribution of improved planting material and continuing losses from cocoa swollen shoot virus disease.
Gilmour described the 2026–27 season as pivotal.