Chocolate has always been in high demand. Even as inflation has changed the way Americans eat chocolate the products are as popular as ever — especially since the industry has seen steady growth. The National Confectioners Association’s annual State of Treating report notes that chocolate sales are up 5.8% in 2023. In fact sales have increased every year since the NCA released its first State of Treating report in 2020 despite a global pandemic affecting the supply chain and unstable economic trends.
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How Climate Change Could Affect Chocolate #Shorts
But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. Yes chocolate sales have continued to rise but they have been significantly outpaced by sales of non-chocolate sweets. The NCA reports that sales of non-chocolate sweets increased by 12.1% in 2023 more than double the sales of chocolate. At the same time chocolate sales in 2023 showed significantly less growth compared to the previous two years which both saw growth of more than 9%.
These figures point to a growing trend in the confectionery industry. Non-chocolate sweets are becoming increasingly popular in the industry but it’s not because we’ve lost our taste for chocolate. The truth is that we may not have chocolate chips on store shelves for much longer as cocoa the main ingredient in chocolate is under serious threat from climate change. Cocoa harvests are declining and with the future of the crop in question the world will have to look elsewhere to satisfy its sweet tooth.
Cocoa is one of the most vulnerable crops to climate change. The trees can only grow within 20 degrees of the equator as they require a warm tropical climate. The heart of the modern cocoa trade is West Africa with Ivory Coast as the world’s largest producer of cocoa and neighboring Ghana accounting for more than half of the world’s total supply. Both countries have faced extreme climate conditions in recent years ranging from devastating droughts to torrential rains.
