Craving vs cash: Chocolate lovers face tough choices as prices spike

It was a short visit for Salvator. In less than five minutes, the New York City native racked up a bill of more than $130 for chocolate pralines and ganaches at the Edwart Chocolatier on Rue de Rivoli - one of Paris's top shopping streets. All gifts, he said, for friends and family. 

"I'm noticing that the prices are higher than my last trip here," he said, holding up his bags. "I usually buy a ton of gifts - the prices aren't impacting that."

The global price of cocoa has soared 150 percent in the past year to hit a record high of $6,884 per metric ton in February. Extreme weather and disease in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire - where more than half the world's cocoa is produced - is the main culprit.  

Juliette Billette de Villemeur, president of Edwart Chocolatier, said the company sources very little of its cocoa from West Africa, but the global tightening of supply has raised prices across the board.

"Large companies that source over there are going to look at different origins because they still need to produce their chocolates," she said. "So we feel the repercussions of this increase in every single origin that we source, whether it's Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, you name it, it has been increasing."

Billette de Villemeur said suppliers increased prices 15 percent this month on the back of a near 10 percent rise last year.  The company absorbed the costs in 2023, she said, but this year it decided to increase a select number of products in their five shops around Paris. 

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The increases mostly affect Edwart's boxes of handmade pralines and ganaches, which can take up to two full days to produce. Each box is now at least a dollar more expensive.

To offset the spike in cocoa prices, some companies have slimmed down on size, but kept prices the same. Others have added cheaper alternatives like nuts or simply introduced new products that use less chocolate. 

"The quality of our product is so important to us, to our DNA, to our image that we just could not resolve ourselves to change anything," said Billette de Villemeur. 

Edwart is not the only one raising prices. Big name brands like Hershey's, Nestle and Mondelez have all done the same, leaving consumers to make some tough choices.  

"I'm actually buying less chocolate due to the price," said one young lady on Rue de Rivoli. 

An older gentleman also chimed in: "I consume less chocolate than before because the price is getting higher and higher. But I would like to choose the best ones because if I eat less, I prefer better."

Experts expect the cocoa crisis to extend into 2025, meaning chocolatey treats could end up creating an increasingly strained tug-of-war between our cravings and our cash. 

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