Your favourite guilty pleasure might be less chocolate, and more ‘chocolate-flavoured’, than you might think.
Cocoa has become much more expensive so manufacturers are using all kinds of subterfuge to satisfy customers. Some make the chocolate bar thinner. Some change the ingredients in the coating. Some increase their sales of mixed confectionary with new fillings like ‘Valencia Orange Ganache’, coining fancy names to attract customers seeking elegant indulgence, when really it’s a clever way of disguising the reduced quantum of actual chocolate.
The underlying problem is that the world’s supply of cocoa is not enough for demand which is rising, especially in Asia.
Cocoa and child labour
Cocoa only grows in tropical regions like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Ecuador. Unlike other crops traded on world markets, it does not grow in large plantations. Instead, it is grown as a cash crop on small family farms.
These farmers do not sell directly to international traders. They sell at a price fixed by a state agricultural control board, which then arranges onward sales into the world market. This somewhat protects the individual farmers from price volatility.
However there are concerns of child labour that some organisations are investigating and attempting to set up alternative streams of income for the poorest families. When families are desperately poor, any activity that brings in extra cash pulls children away from schooling.
Why is cocoa supply decreasing?
With cacao in such high demand, why is the supply decreasing and not increasing? The list of causes includes climate change, disease, and aging farmers with children who prefer urban living.
Faced with shortage, world prices shot up in 2024 to equal the price even of copper. The cocoa prices have reduced in 2026 but are still above the historic lower price on which most manufacturers confected and sold their products.
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Re-confecting the chocolate products
To supply the rising demand, they are reformulating their chocolate flavoured products, hence the accusation about ‘fake’ chocolate.
Cocoa beans are valued by the confectionary and baking industry not only for their flavour but also because of how the cocoa fats build or structure the product. However, chemists have identified other fats or solids that can be used as substitutes, such as palm-based, shea, sal and illipe. By putting more of these in a product, the manufacturer can reduce the real chocolate content.
There is even research on replicating chocolate’s flavour by growing the bio-cells. Presumably, if satisfactory, this will remove the need to find more land and farmers to grow cacao trees.
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Chocolate is an ingredient that increases the saleability of a variety of products: cakes, biscuits, snacks, beverages.
In Western tradition, it is consumed in sugary products. But in its original homeland among the Maya in Mexico, and later in the Aztec Empire, it was consumed unsweetened, with ingredients like chilli peppers and flowers. It was essential for many social occasions and ceremonies, and, like the Japanese tea customs, the performance of serving it developed into rituals.
Diaz, one of the first Spanish invaders into the Aztec empire, described how the servants of the Emperor “brought him in cups of pure gold a drink made from the cocoa-plant, which they said he took before visiting his wives.. I saw them bring in a good fifty large chocolate jugs, all frothed up, of which he would drink a little. They always served it with great reverence.” So, seems like he took it as an aphrodisiac.
So, cheers for chocolates as Valentine gifts, even though they might be choco-lites these days.
