The Price Of Romance Is Higher In 2025 Thanks To Record Chocolate Inflation

Valentine's Day comes with some bittersweet news this year as inflation continues to ravish grocery stores throughout the nation. According to David Branch, the sector manager at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, who spoke to CNN on the matter, "This Valentine's Day expect prices for chocolate treats to increase around 10% to 20% over last year as the price of cocoa has more than doubled since the beginning of 2024." That's the bitter part, the cloyingly sweet part is that Americans don't seem to notice or care about the price increase as they are still projected to purchase around 75 million pounds of chocolate this Valentine's Day. 

Since at least 2022, cocoa prices have been climbing higher and higher, but by 2024 the prices went from a steady increase to a jaw-dropping soar. Just a few months ago, cocoa futures hit an all-time high, hovering around $12,000 per metric ton, which is about a 180% increase from the previous year. Despite these price increases, the National Retail Federation (NRF) still predicts people will be dropping the big bucks on candy, with 56% of survey respondents voting it as the most popular Valentine's Day gift category. The NRF also expects Americans to spend around $2.5 billion on candy this Valentine's Day.

Simply put: Chocolate prices are increasing because cocoa farming is becoming tenuous at best. Unfortunately, things aren't likely to change anytime soon, considering that a big reason for these price increases is climate change, which impacts food production. Cocoa trees thrive in hot and humid environments, like the ones close to the equator. This is why over 70% of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa, where, historically, there has been plenty of uniform temperatures, rain, and nitrogen-rich soil to nurture the trees. However, due to a combination of unyielding heat, along with the torrential downpours caused by El Niño, the once stable climate is now negatively impacting the cocoa crop. 

Not enough water can, of course, dry out the trees and cause them to die, but too much water can also lead to black pod disease, a fungal rot that kills off cocoa pods. Stress has also led to trees contracting the cocoa swollen shoot virus, which decreases production. While these climate change-induced unstable weather conditions are causing cocoa farmers in places like the Ivory Coast and Ghana to lose massive amounts of yield, some scientists predict that cocoa farmers in other places, like Nigeria and Cameroon, may actually benefit from the changing climate. This yield shift is but a small sliver of silver lining in the impending climate-change chocolate crisis. In short, get ready to pay top dollar when it comes to stress-eating chocolate.