As chocolate prices soar, will cocoa farmers benefit?

Oliver Coppeneur, a chocolate maker from Bad Honnef in Germany, has been in the business since the 1990s. At the moment, though, he's struggling due to rising prices for a key ingredient of his treats: cocoa.

Last year, he had to raise the prices of his chocolates like many other chocolatiers across the world.  

Prices for cocoa on the world market skyrocketed at the end of 2024, nearly doubling compared to the previous year. The sharp increase is putting significant pressure on the global chocolate industry, affecting manufacturers, consumers, and cocoa farmers.

Coppeneur told DW that the current surge in cocoa prices will make "chocolate products equally costly," which could eventually result in a "significant decrease in volume" on the market.

So far, however, he's coping without laying off parts of his workforce, he said, and wants to keep prices for his chocolates stable. 

Why has the cocoa price risen so quickly? 

About 65% of the world's cocoa beans come from four West African countries — Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon.  

At the heart of the current spike in cocoa prices is a major shortage of cocoa beans.

A catastrophic 2024 harvest hit plantations all over West Africa. It was caused by the so-called cocoa swollen shoot virus (CSSV), which spreads from tree to tree and can reduce crop yields by 50% in just two years.

A report by the International Cocoa Organization showed that 81% of plantations in Ghana — the world's second-largest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast — is infected with CSSV. As the disease is also spreading in the Ivory Coast, about 60% of the world's cocoa production is affected.

Moreover, US media nonprofit organisation Climate Central has reported that "climate change is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent" in places such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria.

A study by the Princeton, New Jersey-based science outlet shows that temperatures above 32°C (90°F) could reduce the quality and quantity of harvests, which is why excessive heat would adversely affect major cocoa-growing regions.

Additionally, the so-called El Nino weather phenomenon led to a wetter rainy season than normal in Western Africa last year, reducing cocoa harvests. 

High prices, even higher profits

Citing official government data, news agency Bloomberg has reported that "at least a dozen family-owned chocolatiers have closed down across Europe" in 2024.

German confectionery retailers Arko, Hussel and Eilles filed for bankruptcy protection in 2024. 

Meanwhile, the cocoa shortage is also being directly felt by European consumers, with chocolate prices rising by 35% since 2020.  

But Friedel Hütz-Adams, a researcher at the SÜDWIND Institute in Bonn, Germany, said European chocolate manufacturers have "generally been able to pass on rising cocoa prices." 

"Their stable profits last year indicate that at least the large companies have managed to cope with high prices ... and in some cases even managed to achieve higher profits than before," he told DW.  

Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli Group said in January it faced a "challenging year characterized by record-high cocoa costs, substantial price increases, and weakened consumer sentiment." It further added that to offset the high cocoa costs, it had to "adjust its pricing," and would be required to do the same this year.

Will the next generations still have chocolate?

Clay Gordon, the creator of TheChocolateLife — an online community for "chocophiles & aspiring chocophiles" said in an email statement: "Chocolate has, historically, been a recession-proof food." He claims on the platform's website that  "people buy chocolate to make themselves happy."

Hütz-Adams from SÜDWIND agrees, and said that current "relatively stable sales" are an indication that "customers are able to cope with the higher prices and continue to buy chocolate." 

He noted, however, that for years, the majority of farmers in West Africa had "barely any resources to implement good agricultural practices," which led to a decline in crop yields per hectare.

Persistently low cocoa prices in previous years, he said, led to workers often not being paid and widespread child labor.

"Massive human rights violations are commonplace and could decrease in the future due to higher prices," Hütz-Adams added. 

Chocolatier Oliver Coppeneur also thinks that the price of cocoa has been so low over the decades that farmers haven't had the resources to boost their output.

Like other industry experts, he warns that without investment in higher yields and crops that are resilient to climate change, cocoa price swings are inevitable in the future. 

"The next generations [of farmers] have to ask themselves: 'Do we want to continue this job at all, do we want to continue working on the farm?,'" said Coppeneur, adding that if chocolate companies don't invest in cocoa farmers "we shouldn't be surprised if the next generation has none left."

Edited by: Uwe Hessler