When you blend raw cocoa with sugar, it yields one of the most universally desired products on the planet, whether as part of a candy bar at the corner store or a high-end artisanal chocolate at a price point many times higher. But there's a problem: The cocoa beans indispensable to making real chocolate have become increasingly expensive, with the price rising by 136% between July 2022 and February 2024.
This is primarily about the large plantations of cocoa trees in West Africa that provide most of the global supply. As climate change causes increasingly erratic and extreme weather — especially heat waves, shifting rainfall patterns and other climate-related risks — becomes more common, the trees suffer and the harvest becomes unpredictable. The 2023-2024 season is expected to yield 374,000 tons less cocoa than usual, a big drop from the previous season, which was 74,000 tons below normal levels.
