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The last time Ghana blocked cocoa sales, the European powers responded by creating plantations in other countries to break Ghanas monopoly of the supply. Then t

The last time Ghana blocked cocoa sales, the European powers responded by creating plantations in other countries to break Ghanas monopoly of the supply. Then they went a step further in researching and marketing low cocoa chocolate so their domestic population would be less reliant on cocoa. Agricultural luxury goods are one area where it’s hard to continually push a monopoly advantage. That said, I think that if Ghana can take the short term repercussions, then the country will come out ahead. It can become to chocolate, what France is to wine. But that would require heavy marketing in order to change people’s perception about what kind of chocolate is most delicious.

jopsen 6y ago
> European powers responded by creating plantations So European companies setup plantations? But yes, Swiss chocolate manufacturers have some options: a) setup a processing plant in Ghana, b) increase production somewhere else, c) reduce usage.. Maybe more.
SyzygistSix 6y ago
Like coffee, this seems to be the better business model. Higher quality rather than quantity. There is a great demand for high quality cacao and high end chocolate makers have been organizing for a while to develop quality cacao production in the producing companies. While it has largely been occurring in Central and South America, I have no doubt that people are looking to reproduce this success in Africa and elsewhere, which is good for both the workers and the chocolate makers. The sooner exploitative makers of low quality chocolate are pushed out of the industry, the better. Europe's reputation as a maker of high quality chocolate may still endure, but it is far less the case now. The state of the art has rapidly been eclipsed by smaller producers in the 21st century.