Unless you, for whatever reason, don't need to consider prices, you likely have seen a trend in everything becoming more expensive- including food.
Reasons for this essentially can be summed up by the following:
Supply and demand.
Well, to be honest, that economic concept is everything. The one thing I won't believe The Cranky Vegan about. ;) (Are there nuanced reasons behind both? Absolutely.)
Let's look at the latter, and in this case, arguably simpler component of the two, first.
Humans need to eat and despite birth rate declines in many industrialized countries, overall human population is set to rise to rise to 9.8 billion by 2050. And those humans require calories.
So there’s your demand.
Supply, however, takes over- and that is indicated by two considerations.
- Supply of agricultural products (food and ingredients we use to process into other food) due to both production efficiencies and factors impacting beyond the grower’s control- including climate change. That can create more or less supply.
- Supply, because commodities (such as cacao, wheat, oilseeds etc) are often pre-purchased through contracts called Futures. That ties up a portion of the supply from the rest of the market.
How does this tie into the price of chocolate?
Well, that’s part two- what’s impacting the agricultural viability of cacao- the first consideration of the supply. Because when supply is limited, scarcity is created- and price per unit has the opportunity to skyrocket.
Hope you are a microeconomics nerd like me- because you are in for a sweet little treat if so!
Emma