Inflation: why has the price of chocolate soared this year?

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, whose price recorded “a value increasing by 50.6 points compared to that of last year”, according to the FAO index of food prices, increased by 20 minutes .

The daily also points to unfavorable weather which has affected agricultural production. In its November 16 report, the International Cocoa Organization highlights “unusually heavy rains [which] 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,” Thierry Lalet, president of the Confederation of Chocolatiers and Confectioners of France, told franceinfo. It targets a more marked increase among manufacturers, 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,” explains Thierry Lalet, also an artisan in a chocolate factory in Bordeaux. For the professional, however, no worries, because “consumers are ready to pay a little more” for their chocolate sold by an artisan.