Chocolate news

January 22, 2025

Jacques Barreau, Grain de Sail General Manager and co-founder

What if this was the end of low prices for coffee and chocolate?

In recent months, the soaring price of coffee and cocoa has been a much-publicized topic, and the increases on store shelves no longer go unnoticed. But why are these products, long accessible at low cost, becoming so expensive?

The main cause of this meteoric rise is undoubtedly climate change, which is disrupting growing conditions for these crops.

Extreme and unpredictable weather events are now the norm. These disruptions have a direct impact on the yields of cocoa and coffee growers in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The figures speak for themselves: in the space of a year, the price of cocoa has risen from under $3,000 to over $10,000 a tonne. Coffee is following a similar trajectory, with prices doubling in just a few months.

The result: yield losses of up to 25% in some countries, even though demand remains strong. This dual pressure on supply and demand is driving up prices and increasing their volatility.

For Grain de Sail, a committed chocolate manufacturer and roaster, this situation means an inevitable rise in production costs. We have reduced our margins to limit the impact on our customers, but the economic reality is clear: the era of low-cost coffee and chocolate is behind us. In addition, many producers are turning away from certified organic channels, which are deemed too restrictive and less profitable in the face of high prices, further complicating our supplies of responsible raw materials and impacting on sailing transport despite the carrying capacity of our cargo sailboats.

Despite this, Grain de Sail remains true to its values. We will continue to offer high-quality, responsibly sourced products, even if this means higher prices. In the face of this crisis, we advocate sensible, high-quality consumption: “consume less but better”. This choice, which runs counter to the practices of certain major groups, reflects our commitment to sustainable, respectful production.

We hope that professionals and consumers will support us in this approach by choosing quality and positive impact.

the challenges of rising cocoa prices

May 22, 2024.

Grain de Sail, like the entire cocoa and chocolate industry today, is facing major challenges in the cocoa market, including the rapid and substantial rise in cocoa prices, which exceeded $10,000 per tonne for the first time in April 2024.

This increase is multifactorial and has global implications for cocoa availability and prices, affecting manufacturers, chocolate makers and de facto consumers.

For several years now, there has been a harvest deficit in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (representing 60% of world production), where the race to produce “more and more” cocoa has affected soils and plantations.

This scenario is likely to lead to cocoa shortages that could severely impact the chocolate industry as a whole. Beans and by-products such as cocoa mass and cocoa butter are affected, the latter being particularly hard hit due to its more complex production process, with prices now reaching $35,000 or more per tonne, compared with less than $6,000 historically.

In Latin America, producers are remunerated at market prices, so the effort required to produce organic produce is no longer essential for a comfortable income.

Despite these challenges, Grain de Sail has no intention of lowering product quality or reducing product dimensions. However, given the complexity of sourcing, variations in taste may occur due to changes in the origin of certain raw materials.

Our commitment to organic raw materials remains unwavering, but we have to accept the need to purchase the raw materials available under current conditions. Unfortunately, to ensure the company’s sustainability, an increase in the price of our chocolates has become inevitable and necessary.

Grain de Sail will attempt to inform and sensitize consumers to the current situation, advocating a thoughtful approach to consumption – focusing on chocolate quality rather than quantity. Basically, consume less and consume better.

This strategy reflects Grain de Sail’s dedication to our values, and our effort to navigate the turbulent waters of this crisis without abandoning our commitment to quality and sustainability.

understanding cocoa price fluctuations

April 14, 2024.

This brown gold is currently the talk of the town, and with good reason:between November 2023 and April 2024, its price rose 3-fold!

At Grain de Sail, our chocolate-making business is directly concerned.

the price of cocoa

Source: https: //www.boursorama.com/bourse/matieres-premieres/cours/_CJ/

For years, Grain de Sail has adopted a strategy of premiums and adjustments to the purchase price of cocoa to offer a more dignified wage to our producers in the Dominican Republic and Peru, as cocoa prices were historically too low. Without getting carried away with the speculative excesses of the moment, the increase in cocoa prices is not such a bad thing, as it allows producers to be better remunerated. Obviously, the increase will have to be passed on to the sales prices of our chocolates… not much choice.

What’s more, we’re now seeing clear signs that the planet’s beautiful environmental mechanism is coming to a halt. Should we be surprised? Not really…

It’s been a few decades since our fierce desire for GDP growth (an index developed at the end of the 1929 crisis) logically translated into major environmental degradation.

Well, well, well... planet earth also has limits?

This decline has even become very palpable: climate change on the one hand (more frequent and more extreme weather phenomena … right up to the cocoa crisis) and, on the other, the sharp drop in biodiversity, illustrated in particular by the absence of insects on our windscreens in summer, whereas in the 80s we were clearly at risk of an accident without cleaning every 2 hours.

The cocoa crisis is mainly due to successive poor harvests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together account for over 2/3 of world production. These crop failures (15% drop in harvested volumes) can be explained by climatic hazards (droughts followed by floods leading to crop damage and disease) but also, and above all, by unsustainable practicessuch as :

1

Intensive cocoa farming (monoculture)

2

Use of pesticides that destroy biodiversity and soils and ultimately reduce yields

3

Non-renewal of aging cocoa trees (which end up producing less).

Obviously, our consumer behavior only encourages these methods, as our appetite for cheap, low-quality chocolate continues to grow (over 20% growth in consumption in 5 years).

We always want more for less…

So what can we do to correct our excesses?

Back to basics:

Relocate everything that can be relocated

Promoting short circuits

Produce less but better

Grain de Sail cargo sailboats, for example, when transport is still necessary

Transport less and transport better

Long-lasting, repairable, recyclable products and ORGANIC foods that promote biodiversity and human health

And for the consumers in all of us:

CONSUME LESS, CONSUME BETTER

To put it plainly, we need to be more selective in our purchases, giving priority to quality over quantity.

What if the cocoa crisis actually represented an opportunity?

Couldn’t we imagine a more qualitative economy where pleasure is no longer systematically attached to “more and more”?

Given this reasoning, minimum remuneration quickly becomes an issue.

A person who, on the 20th of the month, no longer knows how to feed or shelter himself properly obviously doesn’t give a damn about environmental issues or more expensive qualitative purchases (see Maslow’s pyramid).

Maslow pyramid

Access to quality products should become possible for all through greater social equity … but only if we become more reasonable about quantities … otherwise our wallets won’t keep up and the planet will suffer.

The opportunity is here! It’s up to us to seize it!

April 4, 2024
Jacques Barreau, Managing Director of Grain de Sail

Chocolate news

What if this was the end of low prices for coffee and chocolate?

the challenges of rising cocoa prices

understanding cocoa price fluctuations

the price of cocoa

Well, well, well... planet earth also has limits?

1

2

3

So what can we do to correct our excesses?

Back to basics:

What if the cocoa crisis actually represented an opportunity?

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