Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/25/hot-chocolate-cocoa-prices-hit-all-time-highs-amid-global-supply-shortages.html
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The alarm has been ringing about cocoa bean supply for a solid decade now. Not surprising. Climate change and human incursion are wrecking the habitat for cocoa beans, and capitalism is only forcing the remaining enclaves into higher production stress.
We should get used to a world where chocolate is a luxury good, especially if it’s ethically produced.
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This is a nightmare for me.
Chocolate manufactures are planning to deal with the increased price of the main ingredient in their products by raising prices, reducing the size of their products, and using cocoa substitutes or extenders to reduce their reliance on cocoa.
Protip: if you see the word “chocolatey” on the package it’s ain’t chocolate.
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Yeah, a lot of crops are going to go through rough periods in the coming years as a result of climate change aka our collective inability to coordinate on how to plan past next quarter.
I suspect by 2040 the upper bound on price for most crops (though maybe not the most important ones) will be set by indoor farming. Today it’s mainly just lettuce, for good reason, but it’ll work its way down the price curve bit by bit. Cargill and AeroFarms are already working on it for chocolate. It’s got plenty of problems to overcome, but done right it simultaneously addresses climate change, arable land scarcity, supply consistency, and chemicals usage.
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Yeah, I’ve read some pretty dire long-term forecasts for chocolate for perhaps a couple decades. I’m wondering how much of this is a blip, and how much this represents the beginning of the end for chocolate production.
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In before everything becomes chocolate-flavored.
How long before we’ll be telling the kids “back in my day, Starbucks sold mochas made from real coffee beans and real chocolate syrup!” ?
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The real problem with the chocolate industry, though isn’t just that there are supply chain issues, it’s that the people farming the cocoa plants are exploited:
So, maybe us not being able to get our chocolate bars is not an entirely bad thing?
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Not exploiting people is important. I’m not convinced “Their land is not able to produce as much output anymore” is the kind of change that will give them better prospects than what they’re doing now.
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