NEW YORK – North American cocoa grindings took a surprise fall in the fourth quarter of 2017 and nudged down to a five-year low for the full calendar year, data from the National Confectioners Association (NCA) showed on Thursday.
Cocoa processors in the United States, Canada and Mexico reported grinding 116,080 tonnes of beans from October through December, down 1.28 percent from the same period a year earlier and the lowest for the fourth quarter since 2009, NCA data showed.
That was below expectations that ranged from 1 percent to 3 percent higher and brought the region’s bean processing in 2017 to 484,620 tonnes, down 0.1 percent from 2016 and a five-year low.
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