Chocolatier struggles as cocoa price soars

Maninder Kahrod has owned The Chocolate Quarter in Birmingham for nine years

"It's more worrying now than it was during Covid and Brexit, it's a really big concern."

Maninder Kahrod, a chocolatier who owns The Chocolate Quarter in Birmingham, said it had become harder and harder to make ends meet as the price of cocoa continued to soar.

The price has more than doubled in the last 12 months due to the impact of climate change, including a fungal infection that reduced crop yields, she added.

Ms Kahord, who opened the shop nine years ago, said the price of cocoa had previously increased "a little bit occasionally", but the recent rise had become "a really big worry".

She added that a number of chocolatiers had closed down following the significant increase in costs and said she had also experienced a decline in sales due to the cost of living crisis.

"The prices are going up so much and people's wages are not staying in line with it, our customers would like to spend more but they are spending a lot less.

"Whether it's Valentine's day or Christmas, people who were buying three Easter eggs are now buying one and sharing it."

'I don't want to increase costs'

Despite the downward trajectory, Ms Kahrod said she was hesitant to increase the price of her products.

"There is a limit as to how much you can put prices up by. It's already a luxury item, people aren't seeing it as a necessity, as soon as you put them up too high, you get outpriced."

She added that the business had to work to smaller profit margins in order to stay open.

"To make the same amount of money we've got to make even more [chocolates], but our kitchen is tiny and we need to make everything fresh."

Ms Kahrod said for her business the price of cocoa beans had doubled in the last 12 months

Climate change had also caused issues with the supply of cocoa, the chocolatier added.

"We used to get this really nice chocolate that we would get from Ecuador, with banana and liquorice notes, which we used as part of our tasting, then suddenly we couldn't get it."

"As time as gone on, we couldn't get our single-origin chocolates either".

Ms Kahrod acknowledged that it was not just business owners who are affected.

"The poor farmers, they are really struggling. It must be so difficult for them to earn a living", she added.