Oxfordshire chocolatier “massively impacted” by soaring cocoa prices
A report warns that global cocoa prices have risen by 400%
Last updated 17th Feb 2025
A family business in Oxfordshire says they’re massively impacted by soaring cocoa prices due to extreme weather driven by climate change in key counties where the crop is grown.
It’s as a report warns that global cocoa prices have soared 400% after droughts, floods and climate-related diseases hit production last year, slashing the availability of the crop on international markets and causing chocolate bars to shrink.
'We’re doing what we have to do to survive'
Rising temperatures and erratic rainfall have hit countries in West Africa, where more than 50% of the world's cocoa is grown, causing a global shortage of cocoa which shortage started in 2023.
Kate Rumsey, owner of Rumsey’s Chocolaterie in Thame, said: “What we bought for around £4,000 a few years back, is now costing us £13,000.
“We have absorbed as much as we can but as a small business there’s been part of that which we’ve had to pass on through price rises.”
She continued: “We’ve avoided the shrinkflation that goes on with other bigger brands, so we’re keeping the quality and size of our products but that’s coming across in the price to a certain extent.”
Ms Rumsey also says, “we are very lucky that we have a local and loyal customer base who want to support us.
“We’re celebrating our 21st birthday on the high street, so people want us to be here for another 21 years and understand that we’re only doing what we have to do to survive”.
Shortage of cocoa:
Christian Aid's has published a report which reveals that West Africa's "cocoa belt" across Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Nigeria, where 70% of the world's crop is grown, is heating up with climate change.
The shortage of cocoa in 2023 was after unexpectedly heavy rain during Ghana's dry season which caused plants to rot with black pod disease.
That was followed by severe drought in 2024, which the UN has said affected more than a million people, resulting in huge crop losses and record-high food prices, and which scientists said was made 10 times more likely by climate change, the report said.
In the same year, climate change added six weeks’ worth of days above 32C in 71% of cocoa-producing areas across the four countries, higher than the optimum temperatures for growing cocoa.