Chocolate News
Why chocolate prices are likely to skyrocket soon
SALON.COM According to Food & Wine, cocoa prices are at a 47-year high. What caused this? Inflation plays a part, but the bigger issue at hand is that cocoa cultivation in both Africa, specifically Ghana and the Ivory Coast, and Ecuador has reportedly become much more complicated due to drier weather patterns and rainfall changes. In addition, there was a shortage of cocoa “due to that unfavorable weather coupled with crop disease and smuggling” in Ghana; the smuggling is thought to have accounted for approximately 600 million in lost revenue as per the Agence France-Presse (AFP).Eating Chocolate Every Day Has An Unexpected Effect On Your Gut
“Chocolate is basically fermented beans. It’s made from cocoa which is a prebiotic fiber, a type of fiber your gut microbes love to digest and turn into useful molecules for your gut,” explained National Health Service general surgeon Dr. Karan Rajan.
Hey, Chocolate Lovers: New Study Traces Complex Origins of Cacao
Scientists are getting a better taste of the early history of the domestication and use of cacao—the source of chocolate—thanks to residues detected on a batch of ancient ceramics from South and Central America. Using evidence from these artifacts, the researchers traced the rapid spread of cacao through trade routes after its initial domestication more than five millennia ago in Ecuador. They showed cacao’s dispersal to South America’s northwestern Pacific coast and later into Central America until it eventually reached Mexico 1,500 years later.
Why chocolate is about to get a lot more expensive
“Finer foods” such as chocolate and olive oil are about to get a lot more expensive thanks to a supply squeeze of key ingredients due to adverse weather and geopolitical unrest, fanning concerns about sticky inflation. Wet weather in West Africa has rocketed cocoa prices to all-time highs, making chocolate more expensive just before Easter.
Happy Chocolate Cheesecake Day! March 6, 2024