‘Prices have skyrocketed’: How Edmonton businesses are coping with record-high cocoa prices

Local small business owners are facing tough decisions amid a global cocoa shortage that’s sent prices sky-high.

In 2023, cocoa prices had already seen a 60 per cent increase in prices. After another recent spike, many small businesses are having to raise prices.

Ashley Benson, owner of Bloom Cookie Co., said her most recent 50-pound bag of cacao cost $218 more.

She’s hesitant, she said, to pass that cost on to her customer.

“My last resort is increasing prices, I really don’t want to do that,” she said. “I want to be accessible to the public.”

While she did raise the price on her cookie cups,Benson said she’s trying everything she can to avoid charging more for her other menu items.

That includes not testing new cookies using cocoa, making fewer chocolate cookies and experimenting with alternative recipes to cut down on her overall cacao use.

“I’m definitely thinking ahead to Christmas already and changing up our menu slightly,” Benson said. “Means we have to be really creative in our other flavours and it gives us a chance to create something new and exciting.”

The majority of the world’s cocoa beans – the main ingredient in chocolate – come from farms in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Ivory Coast.

Ongoing issues related to poor weather, flooding and disease, have led to declining crops and surging prices.

The current price of cacao is at around US$9,395 per metric ton. That is more than double the former historic high of US$4,764 set in 1977.

“You can avoid a shortage by charging a lot more, that’s kind of what’s going on right now,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of The Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

“That’s why prices have skyrocketed.”

While Yereni Ramirez, owner of Don Marin Chocolates, sources her cocoa from Mexico, she’s not immune from price increases related to shortages in other regions.

She said her chocolate costs rose 10 per cent, but as a small business, she only felt comfortable raising her prices by eight per cent.

“As a small business, we have to suffer the consequences,” she said

Ramirez said her business is built on organic, free-trade chocolate, and she can’t cut costs by sourcing lower-quality beans.

“This business was built from my dad, and his vision was always not only chocolate for pleasure, but chocolate for the well being. For your health,” she added. “It’s very important to keep it organic.”

Charlebois said that’s a good decision, as raising prices is a better option than cutting down the quality of a product – especially for small businesses.

“If they go to your place for quality and you compromise that quality, they will punish you by not coming back,” he added.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti and The Canadian Press