Cocoa prices reached a record on Tuesday as high demand and supply constraints fuel prices higher.
Difficult weather conditions and disease have affected production in West Africa, which produces about 70% of the world’s cocoa. The two largest producers, Ivory Coast and Ghana, have been hit by a combination of heavy rain, dry heat and disease recently.
Late last year, heavy rain and the spread of black pod disease in the two countries affected farming, according to a November report from the International Cocoa Organization. Poor road conditions also made it difficult to bring the available beans to port, according to the report.
I'm going to assume this isn't because the farmers are suddenly being paid fairly.
Difficult weather conditions and disease have affected production in West Africa, which produces about 70% of the world’s cocoa. The two largest producers, Ivory Coast and Ghana, have been hit by a combination of heavy rain, dry heat and disease recently. Late last year, heavy rain and the spread of black pod disease in the two countries affected farming, according to a November report from the International Cocoa Organization. Poor road conditions also made it difficult to bring the available beans to port, according to the report.
There's even some speculation that chocolate will go extinct because it is unable to continue under future conditions, that the only chocolate available will be grown within sterilised growing areas and cost a lot.
Honestly, the shrinkflation alone has already soured me on most commercial chocolate products. Candy bars were twice the size when I was a kid - while also costing less.
These days the candy bars you get are all mini/‘fun size’ with the actual mini bars being even smaller.
Basically, it’s just not worth it to buy them. And that’s not even considering the change in recipe that they went through.
Coffee and Chocolate will again be luxuries of the rich in the coming decades. The rest will learn to use cancer causing, cheap to produce imitations. The owners don't care, so long as the right people can get as much as they want and more.
As ever, thanks greedy capitalists, wish we weren't too chickenshit and/or deluded into worshipping you to stop you.