"The price of chocolate has gone through the roof...
and it's really hard to manage," the founder of an online bakery has said. Katie Cross, who runs Cake or Death from her shop in Exeter, Devon, said she was now paying £9,000 more per tonne of chocolate than she did a year ago. In the last 12 months the wholesale price of cocoa has seen a four-fold increase, creating a challenging time for small businesses.
Climate change was said to be one of the factors affecting cocoa harvests in West Africa as lower supply saw prices rise. Prices peaked on the London Cocoa Futures in April at £9,648 a tonne. As a smaller purchaser, Ms Cross said she was unable to access the cheaper wholesale rates.
"In 2023 we were paying about £5,500 a tonne and by the end of June we were needing to pay almost £15,000 a tonne, which is obviously a massive increase," she said. As a result, Ms Cross said she would have to stop buying chocolate in bulk to save pressure on her firm's cash flow. She has also started producing non-chocolate products like flapjacks and said she put her prices up a "little bit" at the start of the year.
"I really don't want to put prices up again," she said. "We are selling a luxury product and the prices are fair as they are and I think that customers are really under pressure at the moment with bills so I am just looking at cost savings I can make elsewhere in the business." Cocoa prices have been driven up by poor harvests in West Africa, which produces the bulk of globa.
