By Anthony Esposito
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - The world's biggest maker of industrial chocolate Barry Callebaut (S:BARN), said on Tuesday there will be a global cocoa surplus this year and possibly the next, taking a more bearish perspective than other forecasters so far.
"This year we will have more beans than we need, so we will have a surplus," Juergen Steinemann, chief executive of Swiss chocolatier Barry Callebaut, told Reuters as the company inaugurated its first chocolate plant in Santiago, Chile.
Steinemann did not state the estimated size of the surplus for the 2014/15 (October/September) marketing year but said "it will be more towards a surplus" the following year as well.
Last week, commodities trader Olam International (SI:OLAM) said it expects a global cocoa deficit of more than 120,000 tonnes in 2014/15 due to smaller crops in top growers Ivory Coast and Ghana. The week prior, closely followed analyst Steven Haws of Commodities Risk Analysis reported the market could fall to a deficit in 2014/15.
These forecasts come after the International Cocoa Organization raised its estimate for a 2013/14 surplus to 53,000 tonnes and said demand is likely to outstrip production in the next few years, though stocks were seen sufficient to ensure supplies.
"I disagree with a lot of things which you read in the last weeks in the press that there's shortage in the industry. I just don't believe it," Steinemann said, in reference to media reports that there will be a cocoa shortage by 2020.
"I see it is financial investors behind that (who) are trying to talk the market up."
(Reporting by Anthony Esposito; writing by Marcy Nicholson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Gunna Dickson)