A Brief Economic History of Chocolate

Eline Poelmans and Johan Swinnen

LICOS Discussion Papers from LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven

Abstract: This paper reviews cocoa and chocolate production, consumption, and the industrial organization of chocolate making throughout history. Cocoa production and consumption was, for a long time, restricted to Central America. Centuries after the Spanish discovery of the New World, the cultivation of cocoa beans and the consumption of chocolate spread around the world during the early modern times (1500–1800). Scientific discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Industrial Revolution, transformed the cocoa and chocolate industry and increased demand. The 20th century was characterized by a large increase in cocoa production and chocolate consumption, and the emergence of West Africa as the dominant cocoa-producing region. Since 1990 we have seen a new boom in demand, this time driven by growth in emerging markets, a growing concentration in global value chains, and the spread of private standards related to sustainability and ethical sourcing.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://feb.kuleuven.be/drc/licos/publications/dp/DP%412.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Working Paper: A brief economic history of chocolate (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lic:licosd:41219

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LICOS Discussion Papers from LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().