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Russia’s fast-growing appetite for chocolate is helping to boost global cocoa demand, according to Barry Callebaut AG, Bloomberg reported.

Chocolate consumption in the world’s second-biggest market for the candy expanded almost four times the global rate in the nine months through April, the Zurich-based processor said.

The cocoa market is now set to tighten, after two years of bumper crops led to global surpluses that kept prices under pressure. The market will probably be in a slight shortage of 50,000 metric tons in the season that just started, according to a Bloomberg survey of traders, brokers, analysts and exporters.

Barry Callebaut, the world’s biggest chocolate maker, on Thursday said it agreed to buy Moscow-based Inforum to expand in the Russian market. Chocolate consumption in the country rose 9.2 percent in the nine months through April, compared with a global increase of 2.5 percent, Barry Callebaut said, citing data from researcher Nielsen.