Historic high in cocoa promises record prices for chocolate this Easter

Although Easter already increases the price of chocolate due to demand, the value of the products is expected to reach a level never seen before due to the exponential rise in cocoa, which reached its highest price in 40 years.

Last Monday, the 25th, the price of cocoa reached US$9,660.00 on the New York Stock Exchange, which serves as a parameter for the values ​​practiced in Brazil. It is more than triple the price from a year ago and almost 50% above the last record high, set in July 1977.

“Right now, the international cocoa market is crazy. It used to cost less than US$3,000 a ton and now it’s over US$8,000”, says Alê Costa, president and founder of Cacau Show, to Estadão.

Despite the price spike affecting chocolate factories and end consumers, cocoa producers are overjoyed.

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To Estadão, producer Adilson José Almeida, who has a farm in Jitaúna, in the south of Bahia, said that “this is the price of dreams”. “My mother says that back in 1977, it was US$7,000 a ton. And with 200 arrobas you could buy a new truck!”, he stated.

There are many reasons for the rise in cocoa. Between 2022 and 2023 there was a new outbreak of a disease that devastated cocoa plantations – cocoa moniliasis – disrupting the production of the fruit in Latin America.

As a result, dependence on raw materials from Africa grew. However, the problems there involve climate change, mainly those caused by El Niño.

There are still no figures on the increase in the value of chocolate in supermarkets. However, this increase should be felt soon. To find out more about the rise in cocoa and the increase in the price of chocolate, read the article by Matheus Mans, in Paladar.