Is This the End of Chocolate?
Our favorite dessert ingredient is getting pricier, less chocolatey, and harder to produce.
In addition to plenty of protein ice cream and beef tallow potato chips, one of the prevailing themes I noticed a few months ago at the Fancy Food Show was a creeping anxiety about chocolate. René Bollier, the owner of André’s Confiserie Suisse in Kansas City, groaned about how tariffs on the Swiss chocolate his company uses have skyrocketed (Swiss goods are taxed at a higher rate than the rest of the European Union). A three-ounce bag of André’s chocolate almonds — genuinely the best I’ve ever had — goes for $9.75. That’s about 65 cents per almond.
On the mass market end of the chocolate spectrum, prices are becoming just as shocking. At my neighborhood Walgreens this year, a one-pound bag of mixed Halloween candy was priced at $24. In the New York Times, Kim Severson documented a 71% price hike in Halloween candy over the last five years, even though pretty much every big-brand candy company is starting to cut corners and reformulate their products to use as little chocolate as possible.
Elsewhere on the labyrinthal floor of the Javits Center, I paused to talk to the founders of Figa Foods, which uses regeneratively farmed cupuaçu (a caffeine-free plant that’s related to cacao) to make a … chocolate-like product. It was a little bit bendier than chocolate, but the square I tasted melted on my tongue like an especially fruity 70% dark chocolate. The company seemed to be placing their bets on the fact that, in the face of rapid climate change, cupuaçu might actually outlive cacao.
