By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOT Oh for that magnificent cocoa bean, the gift of the gods that is churned into delectable chocolate! Americans adore all cocoa-made products. And, besides being the staple ingredient of every heart-shaped box handed to a beloved on Valentine’s Day, the names of the buyers of cocoa ingredients—Hershey, M&M-Mars, Ghirardelli, Nestle, Cadbury Schweppes, and Kraft—are readily spoken on nearly everyone’s lips. Cocoa is amazing. For starters, less than five percent of cocoa flowers produce the fruit that essentially becomes the oval-shaped cocoa pods. These football-shaped pods average 8 to 14 inches long and range in color from yellow or green to red or violet. Unlike trees in the Northern Hemisphere, where fruit ripens at the same time every year, it takes five to six months for the pods to grow and ripen. Most cocoa is harvested on small family farms around the world by hand, just as they’ve done for more than a thousand years. Raw cocoa beans are fermented for about five days. The seeds undergo biochemical changes during this time. During fermentation, flavor develops, bitterness subsides, and the seeds turn a rich shade of brown. The dried cocoa beans are then bagged into burlap sacks and ready for shipment. COCOA MARKETS Africa produces almost 2.5 million tons of cocoa beans per year, thereby making the continent the main cocoa growing region in the world. Its share encompasses about 70% of the total world production of around 3.5 million tons per annum. As final consumption in Africa is very limited, its share in world exports is even larger, amounting to some 77%. More than 95% of the African cocoa production originates from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon. Côte d’Ivoire is by far the largest producer in the world, with a production level of 1.3 million tons per year. Ghana is the second largest producer, with an annual production of about 700,000 tons. Nigeria is the fourth largest producer in the world (after Indonesia as the third largest) with a current production level of about 190,000 tons, while Cameroon, the fifth largest producer, has a production level of about 180,000 tons. For some countries, cocoa beans and, more recently, processed cocoa (butter, powder and liquor) are important earners of foreign exchange. In Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa exports amount to almost 40% of total merchandise exports. The corresponding figures for Ghana and Cameroon are more than 35% and more than 10%, respectively. In Nigeria, although cocoa is the most important export product after mineral oil, its share in total exports amounts to less than two percent only. In the United States, most cocoa originates from the Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Dominican Republic. In fact, between January and July 2008, the US Customs Service indicated imports from those countries totaled 165,019,897 kilograms from Ivory Coast; 17,146,418 kilograms from Ecuador; 12,381,247 kilograms from Indonesia; 11,086,218 kilograms from New Guinea; and 5,976,959 kilograms from Dominican Republic out of the grand total of 223,814,631 kilograms imported for that time period. Without a doubt, the Port of Philadelphia is the No. 1 port of entry for cocoa. In fact, between January-July 2008, 155,042,949 kilograms or nearly 70% of all cocoa was imported via Philadelphia. The New York City area ranks second for cocoa imports, according to US Customs and Border Control figures, with 51,191,559 kilograms being imported between January-July 2008. On the West Coast, ports and terminals operating in the San Francisco Bay area, including the Port of Oakland, handled 8,518,839 kilos for that time period. Recently, much of the imports have been arriving terminals as containerized freight. This includes cocoa being imported through Continental Terminals in Carney, NJ, which recently has been handling cocoa shipments from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Indonesia and the Ivory Coast. Its facility allows ships to pull alongside the berth and ha