2023-12-25 18:19:01
A ton of cocoa exceeded $4,000 last November on the New York Stock Exchange. Agnes – stock.adobe.com
If raw materials have reached historic levels, other factors also explain this surge in prices.
It has surely found its way onto French tables at the end of the year, but like salmon, foie gras or shellfish, the price of chocolate has soared in recent months. The reason is the surge in the prices of raw materials, such as cocoa, a tonne of which exceeded $4,000 last November on the New York Stock Exchange, the highest in half a century. Added to this are the costs of sugar, the price of which recorded “a value up 50.6 points compared to last year», according to the FAO food price index, recorded by 20 minutes .
The daily also points to unfavorable weather which has affected agricultural production. In its report of November 16, the International Cocoa Organization emphasizes “unseasonably heavy rain [qui] prevented the beans from drying and led to a deterioration in their quality“. Conversely, sugar producers, such as India and Thailand, experienced an unusual drought, linked to the El Niño climatic phenomenon.
But for artisans, the sector has managed to contain the rise in prices “around 5 to 7% maximum», affirms to franceinfo Thierry Lalet, president of the Confederation of Chocolatiers and Confectioners of France. It targets a more marked increase among industrialists, who “have increased their prices, so as not to cut into their margins, as artisans do“. On a box of chocolates, franceinfo notes a price increase of 36% over one year. “We had no choice. This is not only linked to the cost of cocoa but also to the cost of energy or packaging. In certain companies like mine, we did not have an increase for this Christmas», justifies Thierry Lalet, also an artisan in a chocolate factory in Bordeaux. For the professional, however, no worries, because “consumers are willing to pay a little more» their chocolate sold from an artisan.
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