Coffee and cocoa: prices stay high, cocoa beans at 5,711 dollars

The International Coffee Organization (ICO) says its composite indicator price, I-CIP, averaged 287.29 US cents per pound in August 2026. That is practically the same as July, when it was 287.26 cents. Quotes jumped in the middle of the month on worries about El Niño and tight arabica supply in the short term, then the gains faded. In April 2026 the I-CIP stood at 266.24 cents per pound, 2.7 percent below March.

Exports are climbing too. The ICO counts 12.23 million bags of coffee shipped in July 2026, against 11.84 million a year earlier. Over the first ten months of coffee year 2025/26, from October 2025 to July 2026, exports held steady at 118.39 million bags, against 118.43 million in the same period a year before. Coffee pays the bills for roughly 12.5 million farming families worldwide. That is the scale that turns every move in the quotes into a social problem, not just a market one.

Cocoa: two exchanges, two currencies

The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) supplies the comparison. Its daily quotes for 24 September 2026: London contracts at 4,310.33 pounds per tonne, New York at 5,720.33 dollars per tonne, and the daily ICCO indicator at 5,711.13 dollars per tonne (5,021.80 euros). A day earlier the figures were 4,252.67 pounds, 5,658.67 dollars and 5,649.06 dollars per tonne. Levels this high have held since supply disruptions in West Africa drove the cocoa market up.

Day-to-day volatility

The swings show up clearly in ICCO daily quotes. Between 23 and 24 September 2026, New York contracts gained 61.66 dollars per tonne, London contracts 57.66 pounds per tonne, and the organisation's daily indicator 62.07 dollars per tonne. A buyer who signs for a full season's supply of beans pays for that move within a single session: every thousand tonnes of cocoa carries a different price in the morning and in the evening. It is also why confectionery makers and coffee roasters hold stocks and hedge on the exchange instead of buying day to day.

What it means for a biscuit and a cup

Cocoa beans and green coffee are raw materials that a finished-goods producer cannot control. With cocoa above 5.7 thousand dollars per tonne, chocolate gets more expensive, and so do products where cocoa is only an additive: coatings, biscuits, drinks. With coffee holding near 290 cents per pound, cafés and packaged coffee feel the pressure.

The FAO food price index, meanwhile, covers neither coffee nor cocoa. It tracks cereals, vegetable oils, dairy products, meat and sugar. So August 2026 looks one way through the FAO's aggregate basket (133.3 points) and another way through the two commodity exchanges where the price of the morning cup and the chocolate bar is settled.