2023-12-24 10:47:50
Chocolate Santas: Why are they so expensive right now?
Peter Laufmann, AGRARHEUTE*
© stock.adobe.com/Osterland
Chocolate has become expensive; the fault of the rise in raw material prices.
Right now, those who buy a chocolate Santa Claus have to dig deeper into their pockets. This is linked to climate change.
My note: Climate change or El Niño? Or “simple” production and market hazard?
If you’re feeling like chocolate Santa is somehow more expensive than last year, you might be right. Because inflation also stops in front of the party and even in front of innocent treats. Chocolate is becoming a luxury product. Blame it on the rise in raw material prices. And this is linked to climate change. The cocoa bean harvest was far from being a jubilant celebration.
Cocoa has become much more expensive
Christmas is also a chocolate festival. This year, the confectionery industry put some 105 million chocolate Santas (but also Mrs. Claus, Saint Nicholas, snowmen, etc.) on the German market. In total, it produced 167 million chocolate Saint Nicholas chocolates in Germany, 37 percent of which were exported. In November, according to figures from the Federal Statistical Office, chocolate prices were 13.1 percent higher than in the same month of the previous year. This is not surprising, because it is mainly the raw material, cocoa, which has become expensive. The average commercial price of a tonne of cocoa stood at US$3,691 in October 2023. A year ago, it was still US$2,455.8.
Consumers and farmers feel the cocoa crisis
In the background, there is almost a cocoa crisis in West Africa. Farmers there cultivate two-thirds of the world’s cocoa production. In 2022, German manufacturers imported almost half of the production from Ivory Coast alone. Additionally, Ghana and Nigeria are significant producers. But the weather conditions spoiled the farmers’ harvest. Because cocoa is an uncertain crop. It grows best when temperatures are regular, humidity is high, rain falls at the right time and the soil is rich in nitrogen. This has not been the case this season. The heat and drought that threaten major cocoa-producing regions are partly the product of the El Niño weather phenomenon.
Chocolate prices echo global crises
Added to this is also the rise in prices of other ingredients such as sugar or vegetable fats. Thus, in October 2023, sugar producer prices were 26.2% higher than those of the same month of the previous year. Not to mention rising energy costs. Globally, cocoa farmers and chocolate producers are under pressure. It’s like an echo of global crises that can be felt even under the Christmas tree.
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* Peter Laufmann works as editor of AGRARHEUTE. The editor and author has worked in environmental and science journalism for many years. His interest regularly focuses on the large gap between the use and protection of natural resources.
Source: Chocolate Santas: Why they’re so expensive right now | agrarheute.com
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