Becoming a cocoa beans grader is about four times harder than passing the New York State Bar exam, judging by a comparison of the two tests’ pass rates.
Candidates must correctly identify defects in beans such as mold, infestation from insects and cocoa that is “smoky or hammy”—a sign that the beans have been dried over a fire, not in the sun. Since beans easily absorb odors, the fire can give the beans a smoky flavor. In another section, they must identify the origin of various beans, most of which look identical to the layperson’s eye.
David Morales, one of the three men huddled over the beans in the ICE’s grading room, says he failed twice before he passed the exam two years ago. “I was studying for it, but not enough,” said the 37-year-old Bronx native, who noted the origin section tripped him up.
Is it a public sector monopoly, private sector monopoly, or some combination of both? Or is it just really hard to do well, requiring individuals of truly specialized abilities and with a lot of value at stake?:
The problem is that there are only 24 certified graders for ICE and the exchange is concerned that retirement and old age will deprive it of a crucial cog in its commodity-trading machine.
In an effort to “keep the talent pure and fresh,” the exchange is offering its licensing exam in October for the first time in two years, said Valerie Colaizzo, managing director of commodities operations for the exchange.
The full article is here, hat tip goes to the excellent Daniel Lippman, note by the way that Daniel’s most recent piece is here.
Since these folks are essentially setting the price of a shipment, everyone involved in the transaction needs to believe that they can competently judge the quality to established standards.
Yes, and high-end cocoa beans are a luxury good. They likely sell for prices much higher than the lower-quality beans. In order to justify this, the process has to look very meaningful and rigorous, even if it doesn’t make much difference. Reputation carries a high value in luxury goods–it reminds me of the recent post here on New Jersey wines vs. French wines.
It’s strange to claim one test as harder on the basis of passing rate alone when the cohort appearing is entirely different.
What, you’re telling me Columbia law grads might be trainable to pass this test at a high level?
Since cocoa bean graders perform a more important function to society than lawyers ,passing the test for cocoa grader should be harder than passing the bar .
More important and quite possibly more intellectual
As much as I despise lawyers as a class, a certain number of them is very important to keep around.
But I don’t see how it follows that we need to Jack up the price of chocolate.
so what IS the pass rate?
The NY pass rate on the bar is around 80%, so it’s get to be a pass rate like the admission rate at a decent college
Well, _obviously_ it has to be a government plot. Otherwise the free market would fix it, right?
Just like how diamonds in NYC work.
I would expect electronic noses to eliminate these jobs in the future. They would be able to smell much more coffee, much faster, and (probably) more cheaply.
We aren’t there yet. Perfumers outdo instruments by a large margin. Yet.
Why not train dogs to do this work? They can outsniff humans by many orders of magnitude.
Too much slobber on the beans.
Very easy to teach a dog to point out if it smells one of the things on a list. But what about the other things mentioned if they’re added?
While I get the pun, the headline seems to belittle the task.
“Is it a public sector monopoly, private sector monopoly, or some combination of both? Or is it just really hard to do well, requiring individuals of truly specialized abilities and with a lot of value at stake?:”
It says right in the article:
“Although a small percentage of the world’s cocoa is purchased through exchanges, ICE says it must ensure that the beans are of commercial-grade quality because traders who buy cocoa futures sometimes ask to receive the actual beans to fulfill the contracts…the exchange is offering its licensing exam in October for the first time in two years.”
There’s no evidence from this article that it is anything other than market self-regulation.
Looks like a natural monopoly to me, like a town doctor in a town of 50 people. Someone else could set up an exchange with a different licensing exam or even no licensing exam, but the volume of beans coming through is so low it can only support one firm, so whoever gets there first has a pretty big advantage.
According to Wikipedia, IntercontinentalExchange has only been around since 2000. One wonders how they could be suffering from the retirement and old age of its current staff of graders, unless you burn out really fast in this business with its gruelling 50 days of work per year.
Unlike many of the financial derivatives, I expect that cocoa beans futures have been traded long before the year 2000, and ICE absorbed the operation after it was formed. According to this website http://www.tkfutures.com/cocoa.htm the New York Cocoa Exchange started trading of cocoa bean futures in 1925. Eventually it combined with other exchanges and became part of ICE.
Not a market problem
Unless supply is restricted and
They get Tenure.
Thank god we have free markets to set things like LIBOR instead.
A similar function was done in lumber mills, hardly an exotic specialty. A grader, trained and certified would stamp individual structural boards based on well established standards; placement of knots, wane, fungus etc. They would look at each board as it went by on a conveyor, flip it over and stamp it.
I believe it is now automated.
There are a lot of terribly obscure jobs like this. Have you ever looked at chicken sexing?
Unless you’re qualified to grade raw cocoa, I’m not sure what the problem is here. It takes a lot of different people doing different things to make an economy.
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