Beans & Blumenthal

As a 6,000,000 share day is to Manhattan's Stock Exchange, so is a 600-lot day to Manhattan's Cocoa Exchange--drab, brick, Water St. trading centre that fixes the price of the world's cocoa. No small amount is 600 lots, however, as one lot equals 30,000 pounds and 600 lots have a value of close to two million dollars. Last week, Cocoa Exchange transactions reached a day's high of 627 lots, breaking a record of three years' standing. A seat on the Cocoa Exchange was sold for $6,000, a rapid advance over the $300 at which charter memberships were priced in 1925. Thus had cocoa a large and busy week.

Food & Drink. Cocoa laymen think of cocoa chiefly as a beverage, imagine that the cocoa business might be expressed largely in terms of cups consumed. To the cocoa trader, however, drinking-cocoa (which he calls cocoa powder) is only a fraction of the industry's products. To him cocoa and chocolate are identical, both proceeding from the same cocoa bean; the entire chocolate-bar business is also a portion of the cocoa industry. The value of the cakes of chocolate made in a year is about three times the value of the cups of cocoa. The bean was originally grown in South America, was transplanted to Africa some 35 years ago. Now the African Gold Coast produces more than half the world's supply. Sweet-loving U. S. citizens import approximately one-third of the world-production.

Cocoa Exchange. The Manhattan Cocoa Exchange transactions are about twice as large as transactions on all other cocoa exchanges combined, with London and Liverpool exchanges ranking next in size. It was originally (1925) planned as a cocoa and rubber exchange, but the rubber men did not come in and now have their own exchange. Outstanding furnishings on the rather sparsely equipped Exchange floor include a large battery of telephones and a brass-rail circle occupied by camp-chairs on which the traders perch. Compared to the Wall Street Exchange, there is a noticeable absence of fury, frenzy; the building has indeed a somewhat musty atmosphere.

Blumenthals. Famed among cocoa makers are the Hershey Chocolate Co., the Walter Baker Co. (Postum subsidiary) and the Blumenthal Bros. There are five Blumenthals, Joseph, Meyer, Aaron, M. I., and Jacob; but Joseph, the president, is more potent than his brethren. Last week he bustled busily over the Exchange. He is a small, thin man (hardly five feet tall) with a brown suit which he has worn so consistently that it is indelibly associated with him. Of German descent, he is an Orthodox Jew, and rarely visits the Exchange on Saturdays except when there is a very threatening bear market. The main plant is in Philadelphia; the New York office, at No. 16 Exchange Place, is small as to staff and scarce as to furniture. On the walls hang many photographs of family Blumenthal groups--the various Blumenthals with their wives and children and an old group picture of the five brothers. The Blumenthals are best known through their Raisinettes, a specialty consisting of a chocolate-embedded raisin. Another good Blumenthal seller is a peanut coated with chocolate. All the Blumenthals are excellent pinochle players.

Bull Market. The strong bull cocoa market was somewhat disturbed at a U.S. Department of Commerce estimate of a record-breaking African cocoa crop. Even after this bearish announcement, however, trading continued at twice its normal rate. Commodity markets in general have been exceedingly active. On the Coffee and Sugar Exchange, for instance, a seat last week sold for $31,000, a new peak price. It was thought that Federal Reserve attacks on Wall Street were diverting money to the commodities, though this theory did not well coincide with Wall Street's recently renewed activity.