While the US continues to use the price of chicken eggs as a political (American) football, closer to home our concern is with eggs of a sweeter kind. This year has seen chocolate prices rise dramatically. The price of cocoa had remained stable for decades, but in November 2023 it rocketed and has remained high ever since: it is currently almost three times what it was 18 months ago. The sudden increase came about after particularly poor harvests in West Africa, where more than 80 per cent of the world’s cocoa is grown.
Extreme weather, in the form of both record-breaking high temperatures and then very heavy rains, have ravaged the cocoa plantations in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Those trees that survived the 40°C drought then had to contend with disease: the combination of wet and humid conditions allowed a fungal infection called black pod disease to take hold, which caused cocoa pods to rot on the trees. The strikingly poor yield played a major part in the price hike, as supply failed to satisfy demand; costs were expected to even out with subsequent improved harvests, but so far this year sees prices remaining high.
In the UK, we are big consumers of chocolate eggs, so you may have clocked the jump in cost (and lack of discounts) in supermarkets on Easter eggs. Eggs as a symbol of Easter predate Christianity, with their origins in paganism and the celebration of the spring equinox and Eostre, the Saxon goddess of fertility. From the Middle Ages, painted eggs were often exchanged at Easter to mark the end of Lent (when eating eggs was prohibited). The first Fabergé egg was made as an Easter gift, given by Tsar Alexander to his wife Empress Marie of Russia.
Eggs in chocolate form weren’t made until the 19th century (before which it was very difficult to pour chocolate into moulds; the dinosaur scales that often pattern our eggs today are a relic of a time when smooth poured chocolate was tricky to get right). But we made up for lost time. Fry’s sold the first chocolate egg in England in 1873, with Cadbury following in 1875. Their popularity was rapid: by 1983, there were 19 lines in the Cadbury Easter egg list. Today, in the UK, we buy around 80 million chocolate eggs a year.
Many chocolatiers and bakeries have made public statements to their customers about their need to raise prices in light of the cocoa crisis. Rich Myers of the viral Get Baked bakery recently told his Instagram followers that he had been informed the price of chocolate for his business would be increasing by £100,000 in the year ahead. His company hopes to absorb the increase itself rather than pass it on to customers, having already been forced to put up prices last year.
‘In April 2024, I was paying around £15 per kilo for chocolate. One year later, I’m paying £50 a kilo’
The rise is felt even more keenly in artisan circles where profit margins tend to be slimmer, and the desire to use the best quality and most ethical chocolate has seen even more pronounced spiralling of costs. Annabel Latham of Annabel’s Patisserie in Oxfordshire tells me: ‘Last year we started being bombarded with warnings from suppliers about huge price hikes. In April 2024, I was paying around £15 per kilo for chocolate. Today, one year later, I’m paying £50 a kilo. My profit margins are tiny. I don’t think I’ll be able to continue to increase my prices as there does become a point where it’s simply too expensive for the customer.’ Latham seriously considered simply not producing Easter eggs at all this year; usually seasonal products can command a higher price and make up for profit shortfalls at other times of the year, but this year ‘it simply wasn’t feasible’.
Chocolate expert Jennifer Earle explains that the price hike has been a long time coming: ‘Although the price increasing dramatically was really problematic for anybody who was buying cocoa beans or chocolate for their business, for the cocoa farmers it is well overdue.’ The chronic underinvestment in the cocoa farmers, many of whom are smallholders, must be acknowledged as a major part of the problem, alongside the damaging effects of climate change. Some 85 per cent of the forests in West Africa were razed to grow cocoa. The cocoa plantations are incredibly water intensive, and currently unsustainable; without proper investment, the cocoa farmers simply cannot make long-term choices which support good farming practices and reliable yields. ‘If we want to have chocolate in the future, we need those farmers to be paid more so that they can invest in agroforestry,’ says Earle.
There is not huge optimism that prices will descend again. ‘I’m not hopeful that prices will go back down, we’ve been told to expect a “new normal”,’ Latham says. Earle agrees: ‘I am worried that it’s too little, too late. You will not see the prices go down to pre-November 2023 levels.’ But both find a positive in the cocoa crisis receiving wider attention: ‘I’ve noticed that the price changes have really opened up discussions about the production of cocoa and some of the unscrupulous practices that are involved,’ Latham observes.
‘I do think in time people will adjust.’ Earle says. ‘The best thing you can do to make sure that we do have chocolate for years to come is to spend your money with craft chocolate-makers who are making sure that not only are they paying their farmers really well, but those farmers are looking after the land to make sure it’s sustainable.’ So if our appetite remains strong for chocolate Easter eggs, we may have to be prepared to dig a little deeper into our pockets to secure one.
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