Sharp rises in cocoa prices have made this year' Sinterklaas celebrations more costly, De Tijd warned on Friday. Prices are unlikely to drop any time soon.
Since 2023, the price of the main ingredient in chocolate has more than doubled. "I have never experienced this before in the 30 years I have worked in the sector," the spokesperson for Choprabisco, the Belgian federation for chocolate companies, told De Tijd.
The main culprits for the rising prices are fungal diseases in cocoa plants and bad weather, which resulted in terrible harvests in crucial cocoa-producing countries in West Africa.
However, the impact of the rising cocoa costs on chocolate products are likely to only be truly felt next year,a spokesperson at the supermarket chain Colruyt told De Tijd.
To 'minimise' the price increase for consumers, chocolate producers are likely to use techniques such as maintaining the same price for a smaller amount of the same product, De Tijd noted.
