In December, the EU purchased a batch of cocoa butter from Russia worth €243,600 — the first shipment since February 2020 and the largest to date. These conclusions are based on Eurostat statistics.

For comparison, in February 2020, the volume of purchases amounted to only €18,000. After that, no deliveries were recorded for almost five years. Despite the resumption of imports, Russia ranked only 17th among cocoa butter suppliers to the EU. The largest exporters remain Côte d'Ivoire (€118.5 million), Ghana (€56.2 million), Cameroon (€32.4 million), Indonesia (€22.6 million), and Canada (€15.2 million).

The December deal with Russia is expected to be rather isolated, given the wide diversification of European cocoa product supplies.