Worldwide Chocolate Shortage - It sounds like an apocalyptic statement and it could be indeed for the people who love chocolate with their heart, souls and mouths.
Two of the biggest chocolate makers are anticipating this event to happen not many years from now. Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut are basically and simply saying there is a chocolate deficit or shortage.
In simple terms, what's happening is that people are consuming more chocolate in a worldwide manner than the actual chocolate that is produced. Or, in business terms if preferred, the demand is a lot higher than the supply.
Why is this happening? First, people eat a lot of chocolate. According to the Washington Post, last year, the world ate 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced.
Following those statistics, the number could rise to 1 million metric tons by 2020 and by 2030; the number would be of 2 million metric tons of deficit.
Still, the fault is not of consumers. There are two sides to every story and the producers are lacking. It turns out that 70 percent of the world's cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast and in Ghana, both in Africa.
The problem in those zones relates to an incredible drought and a fungal disease, called frosty pod. Due to these two causes, a number escalating from 30 to 40 percent of cocoa production was wiped out.
Farmers are even recurring to growing corn in order to live day by day and actually make a living, because the cocoa production is simply in shortage without a seeming way out, Time reported.
Still, the chocolate makers worldwide are already considering this possibility and are thinking of a way to fix the shortage.
"We have a real opportunity to transform this industry to the good of millions of farmers and their families. We now need to move quickly to action and implement in cocoa-growing communities," said Barry Parkin from the CocoaAction initiative and NJ noted.
Now, it's a matter of seeing what CocoaAction will do about the chocolate shortage and if the worldwide problem can be resolved.
