February 2026 News & AMA | #PSC 180
OVERVIEW: Episode 180 of #PodSaveChocolate features chocolate and cocoa news fit to eat, as well as the monthly live AMA (Ask Me Anything about chocolate or cocoa) for February 2026.
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Episode 180 Overview
In this episode: News that’s fit to eat for January, 2026!
Topics lined up to be covered include ...
The Ongoing Saga of the Cost of Cocoa
| MARKETS |
|---|
| Futures Prices / Futures Overview – Barchart.com |
| Graph – Trading Economics |
| ICCO Pricing Stats |
| Reality Check: Here is an uncomfortable number [...]: for every tonne of cocoa that leaves West Africa, an estimated €4,400 in value is destroyed, extracted, or left on the table by a supply chain that has barely changed in decades. That is more than the bean itself is worth at current FOB prices. Not all of that is recoverable. But a significant portion of it, perhaps half, is being lost to failures that are structural, not inevitable. • Poor fermentation. • Opaque intermediaries. • Seasonal operations that leave factories idle and pods rotting on trees for months at a time. • A traceability gap that the EUDR is about to make obvious. These are not new complaints. What is new is that we are not accepting it as inevitable and built an operational model that demonstrates what the value chain looks like when you actually fix the plumbing. — Source: Cocoa Radar |
Donna Eastlake
Some thoughts on this, below:
Cocoa prices have fallen below four thousand dollars per metric tonne for the first time since November 2023 after a year of extreme volatility. The core driver is weak buying interest, leading to stock accumulation in key origins, especially Ivory Coast and Ghana, alongside forecasts of sizable global surpluses in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 crop years.
The article’s bias is towards digestible, lightly analytical copy that supports ongoing engagement with the publication and its commercial ecosystem, not towards deep structural critique.
From Marc Donaldson via LinkedIn. The full post is here.
More News
Deadline to enter: February 21st. Deadline to receive samples: Feb 28th. There are currently over 50 entries, with the official entries (samples received) listed here. The GoFundMe is here.
| TL;DR? | browsing headlines |
|---|---|
| The Future? | ... of Chocolate: Confectionery News Webinar Response |
| The Future | ... Focus on the Future of Callebaut |
Confectionery News Webinar Response
- Recorded: No questions from the attendees (not participants) in advance or during. This was a one-way briefing by a credulous moderator (whose favorite interjection was “fantastic”). Less about the future of chocolate than a comforting, non-confrontational narrative.
- OpEd: Stop calling it cocoa-free chocolate. It’s NOT chocolate. It may be chocolatey or chocolate-adjacent, but continuing to call it cocoa-free chocolate normalizes the term and desensitizes consumers to important issues.
- The main reason companies are interested in alt.cocoa: Shorter supply chains that bypass the EUDR. Local ingredients (barley, carob, e.g.,) mean no EUDR oversight [sugar is not subject to the EUDR].
- Research shows: Younger people are more interested in trying alt.chocolates, but they will not likely abandon their favorites.
- Creativity vs Originality: Johan Langenbick of Foodparing AI confirmed an emerging reality about AI-driven creative activities; AI increases “creativity” while at the same time reduces originality.
- Commitment to cocoa: The one thing that gave me even one tiny bit of hope about the Future of Chocolate that Confectionery News presented in the webinar was from General Manager Confectionery for Nestlé France Florence Audoyer-Missakian, who stated multiple times: “There is no chocolate without cocoa. ... [Nestlé] is following the research, but remains committed to real cocoa and cocoa farmers.” I am not convinced of the results cited for their Cocoa Plan as anything more than greenwashing their supply chain – it’s not a solution for the entire industry.
Callebaut
I get a lot of email, either from or that mentions Callebaut – here’s a peek at just the last two weeks or so:
What do we know:
- A New CEO – the sixth since 20o2. The average CEO tenure is about four years and eight months; Peter Boone had the shortest run – one year and seven months; and Patrick De Maeseneire served for approximately seven years. Peter Feld, who was CEO and in charge of the BC Next Level program and who made way for the new CEO, Hein Schumacher, was in place for two years and ten months. Schumacher is the third CEO in under five years.
- Industry Coverage – CocoaRadar headline and subhead: A Confident First Chapter: Barry Callebaut Sets the Tone Under New CEO Hein Schumacher: As Barry Callebaut navigates a volatile cocoa market and shifting global demand, the world’s largest chocolate maker is using its first moves under new leadership to signal momentum, investment, and intent.
As I have mentioned in the past, I have developed (and regularly update) LLM prompts that I run serially on articles (Summarize, Explain, Analyze, FactCheck). Excerpts from the results:
At a high level, this piece is describing how Barry Callebaut’s new CEO, Hein Schumacher, is “setting the tone” for his tenure through two big early moves: a new innovation hub in Asia and a major reinvestment in a core European factory. The message is: this is a reset, not a retreat.
However:
As written, the CocoaRadar piece is a smooth, company‑aligned leadership profile plus capex story. It’s useful as a snapshot of how Barry Callebaut wants the sector to see Schumacher’s first moves – but it’s not a critical examination of who bears the costs, who captures the new value, or how this intersects with the current cocoa crisis.
The [article’s] bias is toward depicting leadership competence and stability and away from examining the deeper structural tensions in the cocoa system.
I will be publishing a more extensive piece rooted in this analysis in the future.
About My February 24th Guest:
Terry Collingsworth, International Rights Advocates
CocoaRadar Headline: Judge Allows Child Labour Lawsuit Against Chocolate Giants to Move Forward.
TL;DR: A D.C. Superior Court judge has allowed a consumer protection lawsuit against Mars, Cargill, and (more narrowly) Mondelēz to proceed, alleging deceptive marketing about child labor conditions in their West African cocoa supply chains. The case is brought by International Rights Advocates under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act.
If the suit receives a favorable ruling (and survives the inevitable appeal), this has implications for even the smallest specialty chocolate makers. Stay tuned to understand the what and the why – and what it means for chocolate makers of all sizes who operate or sell in the US.
Future Episodes
An interview with Terry Collingsworth (International Rights Advocates) about updates to lawsuits aimed at holding Big Chocolate accountable for human rights violations in W Africa.
Episode Hashtags
#News #AMA #AskMeAnything
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
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Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
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