The Great Growth of the Charcoal Market

How SuperChar Will Disrupt the Market

Diagram representing the Charcoal market evolving between 2018–2024 (Source: SuperChar)

Sometimes the simplest of resources are in the highest demand. People forget that many of the basic resources such as Traditional Wood Charcoal are used in multiple industries and not just for BBQ. Within this century, the charcoal market will see a huge increase in demand caused by various factors. First of all, we need to take into consideration that a large part (2.6 Billion) of the third world population is still using charcoal as their main source of energy due to the lack of infrastructure for energy systems.

The Fast-Evolving Charcoal Market

Brazil is on top of the demand list with 6,467 million tones per year, a demand that keeps on growing in correlation with the population of the country. In 2018 the charcoal market has seen a record of $5.9 billion and in 2024 the market is estimated to reach $6.6 billion. That is an increase of almost a billion dollars in just 6 years and we are talking about an industry that is centuries old.

The average annual production of the world’s top 10 Charcoal producers from 1993–2017 (Source: FAOSTAT)

This is not only due to the large increase of population in Third World countries, but also the integration of char into different industries such as the food industries and especially cosmetics, as new studies have identified the health benefits provided by char. All this increase in demand means that more trees will be burned down to keep up with the demand. Most of the trees that are burned for the production of traditional charcoal happen to be from the rainforest, mangroves and other timbers destroying an asset of the earth that has a high capacity to store carbon dioxide.

Between 2015 and 2020, the rate of deforestation was estimated at 10 million
hectares per year. (FAO 2020). More disturbing is that it takes approximately SIX (6) tonnes of timber to make ONE (1) tonne of charcoal and the increase in demand for charcoal, translates to an increase in the number of trees destroyed and burned. The current traditional charcoal industry is destroying rainforests around the world at a rate that will lead to the destruction of this planet. Forests and mangroves provide…