State-controlled cocoa marketing was introduced in the Gold Coast during the Second World War and has had lasting impact. Most accounts of this change have emphasized the influence of metropolitan interests and ideas more conducive to state involvement in colonial economies. Although they explain the new found metropolitan willingness to ‘supply’ financial and administrative backing for state-controlled economic institutions, they neglect the sources of the Gold Coast government’s ‘demand’ for those institutions. I argue that pressures on the government to mitigate domestic social conflict caused by volatility in the world economy are crucial to understanding the shift to controlled cocoa marketing.