The Largest Cacao Producing Countries
February 23, 2012
Cacao is cultivated mainly in the lands of Asia, Central and South America, as well as in West Africa. The largest cacao producing countries are Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia. Such countries account for a huge percentage of the total worldwide production of cacao.
During the beginning of 1970, growing of cacao was almost exclusively done in countries like Brazil and Nigeria as well as Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. Today, the cultivation of cacao has widened its horizons and has reached certain areas like the Pacific region, in which you can observe remarkable growth rates in terms of producing cacao with countries such as Indonesia.
Despite the fact that cacao is mainly cultivated in developing countries, it's principally the industrialized countries that have the most consumption of cacao. Those buyers in such industrialized countries are usually the ones who process and manufacture chocolate massively. Quite a number of multinational companies are the leading in the industry of both processing and manufacturing of chocolate. When you take into consideration all the information within the last decades, you will probably notice that a surplus of cacao production has always been present.
You will observe that the principal exporters of cacao tend to be the principal producers as well. In spite of the fact that certain countries such as Malaysia and Brazil are huge producers of cacao, it doesn't necessarily imply that they are huge exporters as well because of their processing industry size that actually consumes the local production. For instance, in Latin America, the Dominican Republic basically exports more cacao as compared to Brazil.
It's not every day that I get so academic like this, but it just pays to be informed most of the time. And when you're a true blue chocoholic like you claim you are, you'll probably know where I'm coming from! 😉
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