I’M FREAKING OUT!!!! According to an exhaustive report in Bloomberg, the world demands more chocolate than chocolate manufacturers can humanly provide:
As this future year unfolds, the gap between how much cocoa the world wants to consume and how much it can produce will swell to 1 million metric tons, according to Mars Inc. and Barry Callebaut AG (BARN), the world’s largest chocolate maker. By 2030, the predicted shortfall will grow to 2 million tons. And so on.
So by 2030, when we are all alien-human hybrids, we will still thirst for chocolate, but there may not be any chocolate to be had. Cacao plants have suffered from disease, droughts, and a shift by farmers toward more profitable crops like corn and rubber. The production of chocolate, given the crop’s recent setbacks, cannot keep up with the demand:
Last year, we again consumed more cocoa than we were able to produce. This year, despite an unexpected bumper crop, supply barely kept pace with the recent upswing in demand. From 1993 to 2007, the price of cocoa averaged $1,465 a ton; during the subsequent six years, the average was $2,736 — an 87 percent increase.
Everyone chill out and stop eating all my chocolate, please!
Though we have a ravenous taste for chocolate, the Bloomberg report claims that there is allegedly still hope through engineering:
Hope exists, however, in the form of a brave new breed of cacao, engineered to be not just fecund and disease-free but also flavorful. This emerging supervariety promises the world a steady supply of high-quality chocolate — and perhaps holds the key to how all future food should be grown.
But until then, the shortage continues. As the Washington Post points out, “cocoa prices have climbed by more than 60 percent since 2012,” forcing many chocolate manufacturers to raise the price of their candy bars, Hershey being the first.
Don’t freak out, it will be fine…really…we’ll just eat something else…like Brussels sprouts…or whatever….
November 22, 2014 6:55 AM
