How Thailand's craft chocolate industry is raising the bar with sustainable practices

South China Morning Post

12-07-2025

When it comes to countries that produce chocolate, Switzerland and Belgium may be among the first to come to mind. But neither of them grow cacao, the fruit whose seeds are needed to make chocolate. In fact, 70 per cent of the world's cacao comes from the Ivory Coast, in western Africa.
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Few would think about Thailand, but the Asian country is emerging as a craft grower with a blossoming bean-to-bar movement.
Thailand's relationship with
cacao has been a long and rocky one.
In the 17th century, Spanish galleons began transporting the crop from
the Philippines to elsewhere in Southeast Asia – to Indonesia, India, Malaysia and finally Thailand, where it arrived in the early 1900s. Yet, unlike its regional neighbours, Thailand never became a major player in the global cocoa trade.
In 1952, the Thai government introduced subsidies to promote cacao as a lucrative export crop. But the initiative faltered as farmers found greater profits in rubber, palm oil and fruit.
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By the 1990s, annual production of cacao had dwindled to just 400 tonnes (440 tons), a drop in the bucket compared with regional giants like Indonesia.