North American cocoa grindings increased for the third quarter of 2018 from a year earlier, surprising forecasters with the strongest quarterly grind since 2014, according to data from the National Confectioners Association (NCA) on Thursday. Companies in Canada, the United States and Mexico reported grinding 128,494 tonnes of cocoa in the three-month period, up 2.53 percent from the third quarter of 2017.
Forecasts had ranged from flat to a decline of as much as 3 percent from the third quarter of 2017. The NCA data showed the highest quarterly grind figure since the third quarter of 2014. North American grinding was similar to Europe's figures, where it rose 2.7 percent from the same period last year to 363,122 tonnes, the Brussels-based European Cocoa Association said on Monday.