Associated Press, RAF Casert
Bruges, Belgium (AP) – St. Valentine’s Chocolate is always trying to show how deep your love is. This year may show how deep the pockets are.
Cocoa Beans prices set an unprecedented record in the commodity market, allowing the gift of love to be transformed into a greater financial commitment than ever before. If it is said that love is eternal, then we see that the low price of cocoa, an essential ingredient in chocolate, is not the case.
No beans or Valentine’s chocolate
“The rise in cocoa prices is absolutely spectacular and now for two and a half years,” said Philippe de Serarie, head of both Chopra Visco, both Leonidas and the Belgian Chocolate Federation. It took over at less than $2,000 per ton in the summer of 2022, when it was under $2,000 per tonne, peaking well above $12,000 during the Christmas season and has since won the $10,000 mark.
“We’re looking at unprecedented prices,” said Bart Van Besien, policy advisor at Oxfam Fair Trade Group, who has the impact of several of the 280 chocolate companies. You can feel deeply in the Belgian Chocolate Gourmet Country, which leaves you with a heart bleeding during Valentine’s Week.
Domin Ke Persen, the owner of the famous chocolate line brand, has plenty of beans to grind at Bruges workshops, but he also has his own cocoa plantation in Mexico, so he considers himself lucky. Masu.
“I have a lot of coworkers who are really struggling because the prices are too high,” he said. “If you don’t have good contacts, they won’t deliver them anymore.”
Some people just close for Valentine’s Day, he said, but he hopes that he will turn one of the few financial bonanzas this year into forced vacations, bringing better news, with Easter having eggs and bunnies Ta. Many chocolatiers cannot go to their normal profit margins and cannot hand over all the extra costs of the cocoa price to their customers. Persoone said his chocolate prices increased by 20% last year alone, but De Selliers said it relies heavily on producers from producers.
The perfect chocolate storm
Cocoa’s price shock is almost a complete storm of phobia, mixing climate, disease, commodity speculation, farmer light form, and social ascending around the world into one nasty mix.
“The declines that occurred during production were directly linked to climate change,” Van Bessien said, denounced changes in annual rain and drought patterns in West Africa, which weakened sensitive trees in major production areas. . Persoone also said that temperature differences between night and day increased in small lands around the equator, where trees can thrive. We confirmed that the harvest was too much because it was worsened by the disease.
At the same time around the world, populations were freed from poverty, and middle class expanded in places like China, increasing cravings for subtlety.
Worse, a year when bean prices have fallen, pushing farmers further down production, pushing farmers out of the land in search of a better future in the cities. De Selliers said, “60% of cocoa comes from Ivory Coast and Ghana, and these farmers need to live better. That’s very important.”
Persoone said, “We never paid enough to have an honest price to the farmers.”
So, strangely, low prices now help to cause high prices.
“The big irony in the cocoa industry is that farmers are currently earning fair prices at the moment they abandon cocoa farming,” Van Bessien said. “At the prices they’re getting now, they may have invested in sustainable practices. They could have sent their kids to school.”
The love of chocolate within reach
Does this mean that a chocolate premier box is a guilty pleasure for Valentine’s Day?
“Yeah, guilty questions… Fairtrade expert Van Bessien said: “If I had always thought about these things, I wouldn’t have survived,” the law said, and consumer sentiment. He insisted that it should beat the
“We should have laws that make cocoa illegal, which is below the cost of production, and it’s not up to the consumer to make this decision,” he said. Both De Selliers and Persoone hope to remain at the $5,000 or $6,000 mark if prices drop again.
“I really hope that the money goes to the farmers,” Person said.
Therefore, during that time, despite the price hike, chocolate should not leave a very bitter taste.
“It’s a small luxury that most people can still buy,” Person said. “I hope I stay this way.”
