Cacao prices went crazy last year, and while they've improved somewhat they're still extremely elevated.
Last year the primary reason for the increased pricing was lack of supply. Climate change is hurting the cacao harvest, so less cocoa is available. This year new taxes (tariffs) have added to the strain. Although cacao can't be grown in the US, other than a very tiny amount in Hawaii, it's still being hit with taxes, which we as a small company have to pay.
Another major price pressure for us is sugar. We source our organic sugar from a company in Brazil, The Green Cane Project, which grows and harvests the crop sustainably - something that's very, very rare. Organic sugar is also something that isn't grown much in the US - there's only a single producer of organic sugar in the entire country. But, sugar from Brazil has been hit with very high taxes (tariffs), raising the landed cost of organic sugar by almost 50%. We'll end up paying all of these new taxes that are passed along to us from Global Organics, who buys the sugar from Green Cane.
Here are the prices we paid for our major raw materials, comparing the 2022/23 season to the 2024/25 season (the cacao season starts late in the year and goes until early spring of the following year). Prices are per ton:
Season 2022/2023 2024/2025
Asochivite: $8, 313 $19,900
Almendra: $9,690 $15,240
El Carmen $6,500 $11,500
Esmeraldas $9,300 $17,300
Zorzal $5,900 $15,300
Boyaca $6,600 $8,700 (contract signed prior to tariffs)
Ucayali *N/A. No longer available.
Sugar $1,150 $1,900
Needless to say these prices make it difficult to keep our prices stable. In addition to costs of sugar and cacao, costs of many of our other raw materials have risen due to new taxes (tariffs) imposed this year.
We're trying our best to avoid a price increase but we have to see if climate change impacts the upcoming harvest, and if the new taxes on imported cacao and other materials, like packaging, continue. Note that we purchased most of our cacao for 2025 prior to the new taxes, but those costs will be added to the commitments we're currently making for cacao from the upcoming harvest.
One important thing to note is that, for the most part, the higher price we're paying for cacao isn't directly translating to more money for farmers. The lack of supply is primarily what's driving up cacao prices, and that lack of supply is caused by farmers having less to sell. And, of course, the taxes go the U.S. government.
We've always paid more than the commodity price ($7,091 as of today) for our cacao, but we do that to put more money in the pockets of farmers - they deserve to be paid a fair price for the fine flavor cacao they're growing, and the supply chain for fine flavor cacao needs to be sustainable. The current situation is very difficult for farmers as they have fewer crops to sell (not only cacao but other crops affected by climate change as), and it also undercuts the very complex fine flavor cacao supply chain which has taken years to create. When large multinational companies who are normally fine with buying low quality cacao start raiding the fine flavor cacao chain because the farmers in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire have run out, it does a lot of damage - we've even had our cacao stolen out of warehouses at origin.
The only short term answer is to stop taxing the imports of a product that can't be grown in any meaningful quantity in the US - cacao, and also to stop taxing organic sugar, which is not grown in sufficient quantities in the US. But, the most significant damage being done to the cacao harvest is due to climate change, and that's a problem that needs a much more comprehensive and longer term solution in order to combat it. Sadly, it seems current US policy is moving in the opposite direction, which is bad news for everyone in the cacao supply chain and also everyone who loves chocolate.
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