Months of rain are also being blamed for black pod disease, a fungal infection that thrives in cooler, wet and cloudy weather and causes pods to rot and harden.”While we have a good price today, that’s not it. The cacao hasn’t even produced any (fruit),” Eloi Gnakomene, a cacao farmer in Ivory Coast, said last month. “People say that we’ve had a bit, but those living over that way, they’ve had nothing.”Opanin Kofi Tutu, a cocoa farmer in the eastern Ghana town of Suhum, said the shortfall in production coupled with higher fertilizer costs are making it difficult to survive. “The exchange rate to the dollar is killing us,” he said.Chocolate isn’t even one of the traditions Tutu associates with Easter. “I am looking forward to my wife’s kotomir and plantain, not chocolates,” he said, referring to a local sauce prepared with cocoyam leaves.To help increase production, authorities are promoting education on farming methods that might mitigate the effects of climate change, such as the use of irrigation systems. The president of Ghana has also promised to step in to help farmers get a better deal.”With the current trend of the world cocoa price, cocoa farmers can be sure that I will do right by them in the next cocoa season,” President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said last month.The National Retail Federation, an American trade association, expects spending this Easter to remain high by historical standards despite rising candy prices. Its latest survey showed that consumers were expected to spend $3.1 billion on chocolate eggs and bunnies and other sweets this Easter, down from $3.3 billion a year ago.In Switzerland, home to the world’s biggest consumers of chocolate per capita, domestic consumption melted slightly last year, falling by 1% to 10.9kg per person, according to industry association Chocosuisse. It linked the dip to the rise in retail chocolate prices.The nation’s signature chocolate maker, Lindt & Sprüngli, reported increased profitability, with margins rising to 15.6% from 15% a year earlier.”Lindt & Sprüngli Group’s business model once again proved to be very successful in the financial year 2023,” it said in a statement this month, noting that prices increases accounted for most of the growth.Yet some smaller businesses that sell chocolate are finding it hard to keep up with the spike in cocoa prices while their sales decline.Sandrine Chocolates, a shop in London that sells handmade Belgian chocolates, is struggling to survive after decades in business. The owner, Niaz Mardan, said the UK’s cost-of-living crisis and weak economy leave people worrying more about food than luxury chocolate, especially when cheaper alternatives were available at big grocery stores.She has let go of her two employees and relies on sales at Easter and Christmas to stay afloat. “Many, many times, I thought to close the shop, but because I love the shop, I don’t want to close it,” Mardan, 57, said. “But there is no profit at all.”
Source link
