🎃 From Treats to Trade Winds: What Helios Horizon Predicts for Coffee, Cocoa, and Climate This Holiday Season

As pumpkin spice fills the air and Halloween candy lines the shelves, the season of comfort is here, and with it, a reminder of how global our small pleasures really are. The chocolate in your trick-or-treat bowl and the coffee in your Thanksgiving mug travel through some of the most climate-sensitive supply chains in the world.

This month, we turned to our AI co-pilot for food supply chains, the intelligence engine that powers Helios forecasts, and asked a simple question: What’s next for cocoa and coffee as we head into the holidays?

🍫 Cocoa: Cooling Off, But Not for Long

Cocoa prices have had a dramatic year. After soaring to a 60-year high of $10.75/kg in January 2025, they softened midyear, but that breather may not last. Our co-pilot forecasts an average price increase of roughly 12% by mid-November and more than 21% by early 2026, putting the global benchmark near $7.90/kg as the new year begins.

The rebound isn’t uniform. Cameroon is projected to lead with a 30% jump over the next three months, followed by Nigeria (+21%), Ghana (+18%), and Côte d’Ivoire (+8%). These gains reflect lingering production challenges and strong holiday demand from confectioners rebuilding inventories.

Ivory Coast cocoa regions: El Niño drove high heat and dryness risk (over 50%) from December 2024 through February 2025.

Behind the numbers sits the real story: climate recovery lag. West Africa is still absorbing the aftereffects of El Niño, months of drought during flowering, followed by heavy rains at harvest. The uneven weather has trimmed yields (down ~20% in parts of the Ivory Coast) and complicated transport across Ghana and Nigeria.

When our co-pilot assigns a “low” climate-risk score to cocoa this quarter, that doesn’t mean the risk is gone. It means the likelihood of new severe weather is low, but structural vulnerability remains high. In simpler terms, the market isn’t crashing; it’s balancing on a tightrope.

☕ Coffee: Festive Demand Meets a Dry Supply

Coffee’s story mirrors cocoa’s but with sharper edges. Over the past year, prices have more than doubled, climbing 103% amid droughts, floods, and shipping bottlenecks. Our co-pilot expects prices to hover around $6.15/kg through the holidays, with the potential to edge toward $7.90/kg by early 2026 as supply deficits persist.

Brazil coffee regions: Excessive rainfall drives most climate risk days through early 2026.

Brazil, the world’s largest exporter, is now facing excessive rainfall interspersed with short dry spells, conditions that have already cut 2025/26 crop estimates. This heavy moisture has increased the risk of fungal disease and delayed harvesting schedules.

Meanwhile, Vietnam and Indonesia are also dealing with sustained rainfall and high temperatures, which are reducing bean density and quality. In short, most of the world’s coffee belt is “too wet” rather than “too dry,” and that saturation is now a bigger threat to yield consistency than outright drought.

Our climate-risk index for coffee currently sits in the moderate-to-high range. In everyday terms, that measures how likely the weather is to interfere with flowering, harvest, or logistics. This quarter, it signals that while catastrophic frost or floods aren’t imminent, climate remains the key driver of price volatility.

🎃 What It All Means for the Holidays

Put simply: this year’s cocoa and coffee markets are less about recovery and more about resilience. Cocoa prices are firming again as demand surges for holiday confections, while coffee prices are staying elevated as supply chains grapple with uneven weather. Neither market looks ready to tumble, but both show how climate has become a lasting cost factor, not a passing disruption.

For buyers, retailers, and sustainability teams, this shift underscores the value of predictive foresight. Helios Horizon doesn’t just track prices; it translates the complex dance between weather, yield, and global trade into actionable signals, the kind businesses can use to plan ahead, protect margins, and prepare for whatever the next season brings.