Cocoa Story: The Western Europe Cocoa Market

The Western Europe Cocoa industry ground over a million tons of cocoa beans, close to a third of the world cocoa production, with the Netherlands alone accounting for 450,000 tons, which makes it the most important processor of cocoa beans in the world. Downstream, the Dutch cocoa trade and cocoa-processing industries together handle one million tons of Cocoa products. Other major European players in the cocoa trade and processing are Germany, the United Kingdom and France .

Cocoa mass

Some chocolate factories still grind cocoa beans themselves. Others buy cocoa mass from the cocoa press industries. But in all cases the factories purchase the extra cocoa butter needed to make chocolate. By far the grea test part of the cocoa mass is processed into cocoa butter and cocoa powder.

Cocoa butter

World-wide the annual production of cocoa butter is around 700,000 tons, of which the chocolate industry produces roughly 200,000 tons for its own use.

In Europe, the most important producers are the Netherlands and France ; the top buyers are Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Switzerland .

Cocoa powder

The Netherlands is the world's market leader for cocoa powder with a share of about 25%. Major outlets are the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium.

Legislation

In most European countries and the United States chocolate is legally protected as a product. The minimum percentage of solid cocoa ingredients is determined by law.

European Directive 2000/36/EC only allows the addition of up to 5% of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in the weight of the end product. Should this percentage be above 5%, the product may not be called chocolate.