The spectacular rise in the world price of cocoa is increasingly worrying pastry chefs and chocolatiers. They anticipated Christmas production by stocking up so as not to increase prices. But for 2025, the pleasure of chocolate will undoubtedly cost more.
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Who says Christmas, says chocolate. A box of these delights under the tree always makes us smile with satisfaction. But for this temptation, we will undoubtedly soon have to pay even more this year.
The reason is that the permanent rise in the price of cocoa has become a headache for chocolate pastry chefs who all work from these nuggets. It’s worth saying so. “It's the cocoa bean, cocoa butter and sugar. That's what we're paying more for, 30% more expensive than at the start of the year and in three years, it's doubled.”whispers Xavier Brignon, pastry chef and chocolatier in Besançon, to our journalists Laurent Ducrozet and Jean-Stéphane Maurice.
In three years, the price of cocoa beans has doubled.
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© DELPHINE GOLDSZTEJN / MAXPPP
With this craftsman, for Christmas, it still works. No increase but in 2025, if the price of cocoa rises further, cake recipes could change. “If we ever have to stop making chocolate cakes, we will stop and we will make Saint-Honoré, mille-feuilles… We will do other things. We will work on other pastries with less chocolate if we have no choice.” he continues.
And for chocolate pastries, which in any case will not disappear overnight, you will have to spend more money. But are fans ready to pay more for this pleasure? “If it's the right pastry, I don't mind paying the price.”assures a consumer we met in a Christmas fair in Dole (Jura) where we could see that chocolate is still as successful as ever.
Faced with rising cocoa costs, chocolate prices could soon leave consumers with a bitter taste.
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© JOEL PHILIPPON / MAXPPP
Essential question: why this increase? This increase could be explained by meteorological hazards in West Africa. Intense rains, followed by a severe drought, severely affected the crops of Ivory Coast and Ghana, and therefore led to a shortage on the world market.
Damien Bénétot, pastry chef and chocolatier in Dole, is also maintaining prices for Christmas, thanks to his stocks. But having to deal with a cocoa market that is so unclear leaves a little taste of bitterness. “We have chocolate supplies all over the world. Bad weather, I'm sure there's some everywhere… You're talking a bit of speculation… I don't really know, but what I see is that the bottom of the bill increases each time.” comments the pastry chef.
Chocolate makers who will have to restock at the start of the year hope, without really believing in it, that cocoa prices will fall before the Easter period. A crucial moment for their activity, which might not have the same flavor as in previous years.
