The price of chocolate isn’t going down anytime soon

LOGAN, Utah — The price of your Easter chocolate shot way up last year, but it has come down since. Utah chocolate makers are riding out the price spike felt around the world. Unfortunately, there are about a half dozen reasons why the price of chocolate isn’t dropping anytime soon.

You’ll find the result of these reasons at USU’s Aggie Chocolate factory. Production manager Andrea LeDuc has been there for a few years now. Long enough that even the raw cocoa beans smell good.

“I order the beans,” she said, “I produce the chocolate, I do everything, mostly, right now.”

It’s the bean ordering that’s roasting chocolate makers right now. There are so many factors affecting what chocolate you can even get.

“We have to have a good relationship with the country, we have to make sure that they’re safe and they’re not bringing any kind of tag-a-longs along with them,” LeDuc said. “They have to fit FDA standards.”

“Certain countries won’t take beans from farms that have been on deforested lands.”

And DeLuc says farms as small as ten trees can’t afford to get certified “not deforested.”

Weather, diseases, collusion, and the price of chocolate 

There are more factors in the mix affecting chocolate prices. Art Pollard can tell you all about it.

“Weather, and they’ve had a series of droughts. There’s been a number of new diseases that have taken hold.”

Pollard is the owner and boss at Amano Artisan Chocolate in Orem.

“We’re the most highly awarded chocolate company in the United States with over 200 first-place awards,” he said.

He buys beans from all over the world but says commodity prices are set by Ghana and Ivory Coast, which makes things pricy.

“[They] have decided to collude to keep the prices high, much in the same way OPEC does for oil.”

Artisan chocolatiers are paying four times the commodity rate, which was $2,800 a ton, went up to $13,000, and is now down to $8,000. Pollard says speculators may have driven up prices, too.

The calm before the storm at Aggie Chocolate

The beans they’re roasting at Aggie Chocolate were bought before the prices jumped.

“When I have to buy my next round of beans, then we’ll have to readjust our pricing,” said DeLuc.

Pollard already raised Amano prices from $10 to $13 a bar.

“It made me sad,” he said,” because I’ve always tried to keep our prices low.  Just to make our chocolate more accessible.”

Both say prices are stabilized for now, but the things that drove them up in the first place have not.

“I could see it going up to $13,000 a ton again,” Pollard said.