As Easter weekend approaches, cocoa futures have reached record-breaking highs due to an escalating supply shortage. The crisis has left chocolate manufacturers desperately searching for new sources of cocoa beans.
Increasing demand saw cocoa futures in New York climb to as high as $10,047 per ton on Tuesday — marking an increase of approximately 4.1 percent on the session. The price of cocoa has significantly increased over the past week and is currently up 150 percent since the start of the year.
One of the key drivers of the cocoa bean shortage is the ongoing agricultural crisis in Ghana. A failure of cocoa crops has left the Ghana Cocoa Board unable to secure foreign financing to pay farmers due to a lack of beans, which are used as collateral.
The cocoa market was already grappling with weak harvests due to adverse weather conditions and crop diseases across West Africa, the globe’s primary cocoa-growing area. Due to the upsurge in cocoa pricing, consumers will likely pay higher prices for cocoa-based products, including chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies. Commodities market analysts also warn that by Easter 2025, the cost of chocolate may surge even higher if cocoa-tree diseases, inclement weather, and elevated sugar prices continue to exacerbate the deficit.
Elevated prices driven by inflation and supply-chain breakdowns continue to dog the Biden government as the Democrat President kicks off his re-election bid in earnest. Two key indices monitored by the Federal Reserve have shown an acceleration in the rate of inflation in the U.S. In February, Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that high prices for American consumers are likely here to stay.
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