World Wide Chocolate Shortage- Are you a chocoholic like the 1 billion people who eat chocolates every day? An average American eats 12 pounds of this sweet temptation in a year, while Europeans consume about 15 pounds.
The world woke up this morning with a shocking news of world wide chocolate shortage. How far can this go?
Bloomberg has reported that by 2020, the gap between how much consumers eat chocolates and how much it is produced could bloat up to 1 million metric tons. And by 2030, world wide chocolate shortage could even swell up to 2 million metric tons.
Unfortunately, the scarcity of chocolates is forecasted to happen as the world's cocoa supplier in Ivory Coast and Ghana is struck by disease and dry weather. Cacao is also being outdone by more staple crops such as rubber and corn.
Climate change is also seen as a major cause of cacao declining produce. With forecasted increase of 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, it can bring massive dry weather and water shortages that will affect the production.
These causes could pose an even larger threat in the world wide chocolate shortage as it reduces 1 million tons of cacaos produced each decade. The scarcity has brought enormous price changes of cocoa per ton from $1,465 to $2,736 from 1993 to the last recent years.
As the world wide chocolate shortage becomes pretty alarming, subsequent efforts have been made to address it.
In distant north of Costa Rica, just outside the town of Upala in Central Africa, a research study is being conducted to deliver trees that can "produce up to seven times the amount of beans traditional cocoa trees can."
U.S. remains the largest market for chocolates followed by China and India that increases its demand from the past years.
With the growing pain for world wide chocolate shortage, companies resorted to one major solution. There will be more ingredients such as nuts, nougats and other fillers in your chocolate bars than the chocolate.
Don't be surprised if you'll be getting a smaller size of chocolate in the near future.
