Threats to Easter eggs: Record cocoa prices drive up chocolate prices in France

Week after week, month after month, the price of cocoa rises. Compared to July 2022, the ton of cocoa increased by 142%. In other words, the beans from which the butter is extracted before transforming it into chocolate cost two and a half times more today than they did just 18 months ago. How can this surge be explained? On the one hand, global demand, which continues to grow, particularly in countries where we were not necessarily used to consuming it. On the other hand, poor harvests continue in the main producing countries of Ivory Coast and Ghana. The cause is a meteorological phenomenon well known to climatologists: El Niño, which raised the average level of temperatures in West Africa. Drought and incurable disease have damaged cocoa production The cocoa tree certainly appreciates the heat but not the intense drought that has been affecting African plantations for months. These poor unfavorable conditions are combined with the development of an incurable disease called ...