The chocolate market in the south of Bahia Brazil

structure, production and commercialization

Abstract

Although be one of the cacao beans world producer during 20th century, the plantation crisis occurrence and world concurrence improvement at the end of this same century make the farming less profitable on the South Bahia. In this way, after 2000 years, producers have sought for way to add value and turn into a less sensitive to international crisis, making a high cacao level chocolate. In face of that, this paper studies the chocolate market structure in The South of Bahia Brazil, identifying the brands quantity, productive, commercial and marketing strategies. The data meaning was made by online platform and technical visits, between august 2017 and July 2018, and submitted to quantitative and correlation analysis. On this period was identified 50 local brands, concentrated on Ilhéus, Itacaré and Salvador cities. The production is mostly bean to bar or tree to bar with cacao high level, exploring niche markets as organic, vegan and biodynamic, It is mainly 56,6%, 70% and 80% cacao content, which the mains end markets are Bahia, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. There are commercialization difficulties, because It is usually made by intermediaries. Thus, the market is characterized as monopolist competition, where new brands are launched frequently, due to in July 2018 there were 50 local brands and in September 2019 there were 74.

Keywords: Cacao. Cocoa. Brazil. Chocolate. Manufacturing.