05/09/2023
Almost 5 million tons of cacao beans are produced and moved around the world every year 🫘🌐
The global chocolate industry is worth $130 billions. Yet do you know that the cost of cacao only accounts for a tiny, miniscule percentage of a chocolate product, something around 7-8%?
Most of the expenses sustained by chocolate companies, anywhere from small to large scale productions, are:
🖐🏼 LABOR, whether a single-man craftsmanship or an array of employees that just push buttons
🛠 MACHINES, whether a small equipment or giant tanks and long pipelines
🔊 MARKETING, from a simple e-commerce website to expensive video productions
🛒 RETAILING, from owning a local store to distributing chocolate to thousands of retailers
This is why I roll my eyes hard whenever billion-dollar chocolate companies, that buy the cheapest and lowest quality cacao on the market, want to justify the increased price tags of their products (simultaneously with a reduced package size) with “CaCaO pRiCeS hAvE gOnE uP!”.
Are customers really paying more because cacao has gotten more expensive, or are they more likely to be paying for a fancy packaging design, an influencer collaboration, a deal with a famous supermarket chain, a new automated machine and a renovated marketing department? 🤔
For reference, a dark chocolate bar priced at $2 could include a cost for cacao (what should be the most important part of the product) of merely $0,10.
So don’t think for a second that the extra dollars you are now paying on famous mass-produced chocolate are because farmers at origin are getting a cut of it. Big chocolate has just found the next perfect excuse to make you pay more for chocolate that is only getting worse 🚮
Thoughts?
