It’s more expensive to get ready for the Easter holiday this year because the cost of chocolate has gone up. It’s a phenomenon being felt around the world because of a global cocoa shortage.
Chocolate store owners say there’s no relief in sight and they’ve been forced to increase prices.
“It is very difficult to adapt,” said Heinrich Stubbe, Stubbe Chocolates owner. “With almost every shipment we get in, there is a price increase.”
The cost of cocoa beans, powder and butter are all up after a global shortage of cocoa due to a number of natural disasters.
“The cocoa butter is a very big part of chocolate, but we now need the cocoa butter for other applications as well. Last year, in March, I paid $90 per five kilo bucket while today I pay $300,” said Stubbe.
Stubbe is a fifth-generation owner of the business, which creates specialty chocolates and desserts. In 36 years, he’s never seen this kind of price surge.
“Chocolate prices go up for the last little while since I would say October of 2023,” said Sylvain Charlebois, researcher at the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. “We’ve seen this huge rally from $2,000 USD a metric ton to over $12,000 USD a metric ton just in December. Prices have dropped, futures have actually dropped, but cocoa prices have remained quite high.”
Some shoppers are willing to pay the price to keep their sweet traditions, but for others the ballooning prices are just too much.
Stubbe upped his prices last year to keep up and is considering another increase after Easter.
“I have to get my prices up to stay in business,” said Stubbe. “I explained it to the customer, and I have a very good relationship with all my customers so that they believe me. I told them ‘guys, this is not money in my pocket, this is the chocolate money factor.‘”
