Ivory Coast’s market regulator is planning to introduce measures aimed at curbing fraud related to fairtrade certified cocoa contracts, its managing director, Yves Brahima Kone, said on Thursday.
The Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) suspended sales of fairtrade certified contracts last month after recording an exponential increase in certified cocoa.
“This year, we have found that 97% of our cocoa is Fairtrade certified. That’s not possible, and you can’t make me believe otherwise,” Kone said at a meeting with cooperatives and buyers at the regulator’s headquarters in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan.
He said around 50% of cocoa was usually getting certification in recent years and that buyers and cooperatives were using this program to push multinational companies into overpaying.
If their cocoa is certified, buyers can receive a premium of 200 CFA francs on top of 80 CFA francs per kg guaranteed by the regulator.
Kone also said that some buyers used the postponement of contracts for the 2023/24 main cocoa crop to stock cocoa they bought for 1,000 CFA francs ($1.66) per kg and sell it at 1,500 CFA francs.
To put an end to fraudulent contracts, the regulator is considering an option to limit the number of cocoa buyers to 30 from more than a thousand.
Buyers and cooperatives told the regulator the solution would be to raise the buyers’ margin from the current 80 CFA francs per kg to 200 CFA francs.
“We can’t meet the price because our costs are too high while the margin is insignificant,” said a buyer present at the meeting.
The regulator said a remuneration increase was possible and was under examination.