Speculative selling and pre-hedging by producers left the London cocoa market weaker for a third straight session on Wednesday, traders said.
Scale-down buying by trade and industry stemmed losses.
Front-month December settled at 816 pounds a tonne, seven pounds lower after changing hands between 824 and 815 amid turnover of 3,760 lots.
Total volume was 7,029 lots. "It's ongoing attrition really," a dealer said.
"Buyers are not necessarily keen to pay up, the onus is on origin hedging to come out and trade and industry are waiting to pick it up," he added, noting that industry seems to be reasonably well-covered at the moment.
Second-month March fell seven pounds to close at 840 pounds a tonne. The contract ranged between 848 and 840 pounds and had a turnover of 1,558 lots.
Many cocoa players have withdrawn from the market recently, holding off till the Ivory Coast main season gets fully under way.
Slated to start on October 1, it has been delayed because farmers are still waiting for a government commodities committee to set farmgate prices.
The committee will meet on Thursday afternoon to agree the levies, meaning the new minimum indicative price given to farmers should be set by the end of the week, Louise Akoua, committee member and commodities adviser to the prime minister, told Reuters in Abidjan.
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