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  "description": "At the heart of Europe’s cocoa hub, industry leaders gathered during Amsterdam Cocoa Week to confront a stark reality: the cocoa world is no longer operating on familiar ground",
  "path": "/chocoa-26-trade-transport-in-transition/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-27T13:20:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://cocoaradar.com",
  "tags": [
    "CAA Conference - EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON SALE!  Join us this September 2026 in Singapore for the region’s leading cocoa and chocolate conference. Our 2026 theme, invites the entire cocoa and chocolate supply chain to unite in shaping a future.",
    "**Chocoa**",
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  "textContent": "Under the moderation of Jack Steijn of The Company Behind Chocoa, the session Trade & Transport in Transition, during day one of the Chocoa Sustainabilty Conference delivered a sobering yet forward-looking assessment of an industry grappling with unprecedented disruption.\n\n### A Market in Turbulence\n\nCocoa markets are experiencing historic volatility. Prices have swung dramatically, driven by disease outbreaks, climate change, shifting production geographies, and demand fluctuations. At the same time, Latin America’s rising output is reshaping traditional supply dynamics long dominated by West Africa.\n\nAdvertisement\n\n \n\nOverlay these structural shifts with escalating criminal activity in producing regions, logistical vulnerabilities, and tightening EU sustainability regulations, and it becomes clear why trade and transport are undergoing profound transformation.\n\nFor Northwest Europe – and Amsterdam in particular – the stakes are high. As one of the world’s most important cocoa hubs, changes at origin ripple directly through European ports, terminals, warehouses, and financial markets.\n\nClive de Ruig from ICE gives a 'high-tech' presentation with Post-It notes on how the Futures Market works. Image: cocoaradar.com\n\n### Digital Compliance and Market Confidence\n\n**Clive de Ruig** of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) outlined how digital transformation is becoming essential to market stability. Over the past 25 years, ICE has transitioned analogue commodity processes into digital ecosystems. Cocoa is no exception.\n\nRecent price volatility, he explained, reflects classic supply-and-demand mechanics – surplus production followed by demand destruction. Yet beyond pricing, regulatory change is now a defining force.\n\nThe EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires cocoa placed on the EU market to be deforestation-free and lawfully produced. ICE’s answer is ICE Cocoa Trace (ICE Cot) – a standardised compliance platform offering:\n\n  * Deforestation mapping\n  * Traceability verification\n  * Lawful production criteria\n  * Digital compliance “badges”\n\n\n\nThese badges can be written into sales contracts, reducing disputes and compliance costs while freeing resources for sustainability investments.\n\nIn a market built on physically delivered cocoa – where futures prices reflect actual European market realities – digital standardisation may prove essential to restoring confidence, he claimed.\n\n CAA Conference - EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON SALE!  Join us this September 2026 in Singapore for the region’s leading cocoa and chocolate conference. Our 2026 theme, invites the entire cocoa and chocolate supply chain to unite in shaping a future. \n\n### Security Risks and the Criminal Shadow Economy\n\nIf regulation is reshaping trade from Brussels, geopolitics and criminal networks are reshaping it from the ground up.\n\n**Cecilio A. Alvarez B** , CFO and CEO of Punta Trading, painted a stark picture of operating in Latin America. US efforts to curb Chinese influence in the region have intensified scrutiny of exporters. Meanwhile, the same shipping routes used for legitimate trade are exploited for illicit activities, particularly drug trafficking.\n\nWith cocoa prices surging from $2,400 to $12,000 per metric tonne at their peak, the commodity has become an attractive vehicle for criminal infiltration. Armed gangs demand payments. Ports are compromised. Insurance coverage for cash-in-transit and producer security risks remains scarce.\n\nPunta Trading has responded with rigorous documentation protocols, including photographic and video evidence tied to payment milestones (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). Contracts now include “conditions precedent” clauses requiring full shipment documentation before payment release.\n\nYet unpredictability remains. Alvarez's message was clear: compliance is no longer just environmental—it is operational and security-based.\n\n### Moving Closer to Origin\n\nFor **Valentijn van der Weide** of C. Steinweg - Handelsveem, adaptation means proximity.\n\nThe cocoa map is shifting. While West Africa remains central, Latin American producers – particularly Ecuador and Brazil – are expanding, alongside growing demand for organic and specialty cocoa.\n\nSteinweg’s strategy: integrate logistics, warehousing, and trade finance closer to origin. The company is expanding across the cocoa belt, with targeted growth in Côte d'Ivoire, Peru, Guinea, and Uganda. By embedding quality control, sampling, climate-controlled storage, and freight management at origin, Steinweg aims to safeguard both product integrity and financial flow.\n\nAmsterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, and Italy remain key hubs—but control increasingly begins at the source, he said.\n\n### The Hidden Risk: Mineral Oil Contamination\n\nBeyond geopolitics and logistics lies a quieter but technically critical challenge: contamination from mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH), often linked to jute packaging.\n\n**Michiel Kokken** , Chair of the Technical Working Group on MOH at the European Cocoa Association, highlighted the need for preventive industry-wide standards to avoid contamination risks. With food safety scrutiny intensifying, even packaging materials can no longer be taken for granted.\n\nIn a market already under pressure, technical compliance failures are risks few can afford.\n\n### **Rethinking Transport for Climate Integrity**\n\nFor **Céline Jaffradou** of Belco and its sister company Nahu ('Nature and Human'), sustainability extends beyond certification – it shapes transport choices themselves.\n\nNahu prioritizes:\n\n  * Environmental preservation\n  * Decarbonization\n  * Price transparency\n  * Full origin-based quality control\n\n\n\nRather than relying on container ships – responsible for approximately 4% of global emissions – the company opts for barge transport where feasible. Though slightly more expensive per kilo, barges reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 90% on certain routes and offer more stable temperature and humidity conditions – critical for speciality cocoa and coffee.\n\nJaffradou called for a more robust voyage dataset for sail and barge transport, including temperature, humidity, emissions, and quality metrics. Data, once again, is the bridge between sustainability ambition and measurable impact.\n\n### A System in Transition\n\nAcross panels and perspectives, one theme dominated: transition is no longer optional.\n\nTrade is being reshaped by regulation.\n\nTransport is being redefined by sustainability.\n\nSecurity concerns are rewriting risk management.\n\nDigital tools are becoming compliance infrastructure.\n\nOrigin countries are gaining operational centrality.\n\nAmsterdam may remain a global cocoa hub – but the rules governing its trade flows are evolving rapidly.\n\nThe cocoa industry has always depended on global interconnection. Today, that interconnection is more complex—and more fragile—than ever.\n\nWhat emerged from Day One of Chocoa’s special session during last week's conference was not simply a list of challenges, but a shared recognition: resilience in cocoa trade and transport will depend on integration – of data, sustainability, security, and trust – across every link in the chain.\n\n* * *\n\n**cocoaradar.com is:**\n\n  * **Official Media Partner - Amsterdam Sustainable Cocoa Conference,****Chocoa****, 2026.**\n  * **'From Our Desk. To Yours. Daily'**\n  * **Sign-up here****for free and choose your plan.**\n\n",
  "title": "Chocoa 26: Trade & Transport in Transition",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-03T10:32:36.544Z"
}