Modelling a Cocoa Supply Chain: Specific Problems and Their Countermeasures

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a steady decline in the quality of the cocoa beans that is imported to the Northern Hemisphere from various parts of the world. With increasing world consumption and demand for chocolate and chocolate products and given declining production, it is very important to assess the supply chain of the cocoa beans to identify the areas wherein most problems lie and investigate some of the methods or steps that can help resolve these problems. Some factors in the cocoa supply chain, clearly, are at more risk of disruption than the others. The aim of the paper is to individually look at the most important steps or processes of the long supply chain of cocoa individually and try to look at some of the ways which might improve those steps in the supply chain. Since around 71 percent of the cocoa is produced by the West African countries, the focus of the paper will be on the cocoa produced by that region.