THE world’s chocolate addiction may have finally started showing signs of easing, sending cocoa futures tumbling into a bear market.

  Slowing global economies mean that consumers are looking for ways to trim disposable spending, and that could leave chocolate off the menu, according to Jack Scoville, a vice president of Price Futures Group. 

  Cocoa-bean processing, a gauge of demand, fell in Asia, Europe and North America in the fourth quarter, industry reports shown for the month.

  Indeed, cocoa futures were down by about 21 per cent since touching a three-year high in September, even after an outbreak of Ebola didn’t hamper shipments from West Africa, which produces 70 per cent of global supply. 

  Three straight years of price gains are also encouraging farmers to increase output.

  “Demand is actually slackening, and is not nearly as good as many people had expected,” Scoville said in a telephone interview from Chicago. 

  “The high prices are doing their job and will probably bring better-than-expected production. Next year, we may even have a surplus, and Ebola has not been much of an issue. We have a changed situation,” he added.

  Cocoa for March delivery dropped 1.1 per cent to settle at $2,686 a metric ton on January 29 on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. The price was down 20 per cent from its $3,371 settlement on September 24, meeting the common definition of a bear market.

  Futures surged 38 per cent in the previous three years as Asian consumers led global demand growth, eroding inventories. The gains prompted chocolate makers including Hershey Co. to boost prices in 2014 to cover ingredient costs.

  The high prices are starting to take a toll. Processing of the beans in Asia fell 17 per cent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the second straight drop, the Singapore-based Cocoa Association of Asia said. Grinding in Europe fell to the lowest for the period since 2005.

  “Macro-economic headwinds that have yet to subside” trimmed Hershey’s international sales last quarter, and will remain a challenge in 2015, Chief Executive Officer John Bilbrey said on an earnings conference call last week.

  In the year production started October 1, output may outstrip demand by 50,000 metric tons, according to Pully, Switzerland-based commodity trader Ecom Agroindustrial Ltd.

  “Chocolate demand has started to shrink and you have to blame that entirely on the higher prices,” Jonathan Parkman, co-head of agriculture at Marex Spectron Group in London, said by phone earlier this month. 

  “We’re unlikely to see much of a recovery on demand unless prices come off significantly,” he added.