Chocolate prices rise in the run up to Easter after high temperatures curb cocoa crops in West...
Climate change is a key reason your chocolate Easter egg could cost more this year, according to researchers.
Most chocolate is made from cocoa grown in West Africa, but a humid heatwave has blasted the crops and massively cut yields.
Cocoa trees are particularly vulnerable to changes in the climate.
In 2023, 58m kilogrammes of cocoa beans worth £127m were imported to the UK from Ivory Coast and Ghana with 85% of the UK's cocoa beans sourced from Ivory Coast.
"There were reports from farmers in Ivory Coast that the heat weakened the cocoa crop," according to one of the authors of the study, Izadine Pinto from the University of Cape Town.He said the high temperatures increased the rate of evaporation, leaving the crops without sufficient moisture.
SIA KAMBOU. Women sorting cocoa beans in Ivory Coast.
The result of these different extreme events has been the same - the price of cocoa has more than trebled since this time last year and doubled in just the last three months.
In February Mondelez, the company that owns the Cadbury brand, and the American chocolate maker Hershey were already warning rising cocoa prices could drive up the price of chocolate.
Feeling the brunt of these price fluctuations are the farmers who grow the cocoa crops.
She warned that, "As climate change worsens, more support will undoubtedly be needed to protect their livelihoods and keep the flow of cocoa beans coming into the UK.".