Do you have a sweet tooth and have an extreme liking for chocolates? Well, get ready to shell out more for them. Here’s why:
The rise in the price of chocolate is being driven by chocolate’s main ingredient, cocoa, which has more than doubled in the past year.
Ghana and its West African neighbour Ivory Coast, which have been long known as the world’s undisputed cocoa powerhouses and account for over 60 per cent of the global supply, are facing adverse weather and tree disease.
In 2023, cocoa traded near $2,600 per metric ton. In January 2024, it almost doubled to hover near $4,200 per metric ton reaching an all-time high.
The price of sugar has also risen around 25 per cent in the past year or so.
The future of chocolate is not looking good with many predicting that the global cocoa supply shortage will stretch into its fourth year by 2025. The shortage has also been attributed to climate change and the El Nino patterns which is affecting the cocoa trees in western Africa.