LAFAYETTE, La. — Easter is almost here and if you've been hopping around to grab some last minute chocolate candy to fill up those baskets, you may have noticed a price increase.
Well, don’t blame the Easter Bunny; warmer temperatures are the culprit.
What is chocolate made out of? The answer is the cacao tree. Its pods are the source of your favorite sweet treat chocolate products. And rising temperatures and deforestation are driving up prices.
KATC spoke with Dr. Karl Hasenstein from the Biology Department over at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he once managed Louisiana's largest living collection of cacao trees.
"If that balance is not maintained and if the plants are exposed to too much sunlight. Which goes into removing the trees or higher temperatures or other conditions then these trees suffer and the productivity goes down," he says.
According to The State of the Climate in Africa 2022 report the rate of temperature increase in Africa has accelerated in recent decades. That's where 70% of the world’s cacao is grown.
“So when that happens, you can not really produce more as what is needed to meet the demand and that is the predicament of what drives up the prices,” Dr. Hasenstein said.
Those effects are being felt by one pastry chief who runs his own chocolate shop in Duson.
“When we first started out it was $4 to $5 dollars a pound and now it's up $7.50 a pound now for chocolate," he says.
Bradley Sonnier has owned The Rolling Pin since 2016 and recently he’s been busy preparing for Easter, but the rise of prices in his most important product is making him change his business strategy.
“So by doing that obviously, you have to maybe cut some recipes out or change your prices to continue to make money,” said Sonnier.
He says it's all about budgeting and shopping smart to make up for the high cost of the sweet treat.
“We shop sales for basic supplies like eggs, sugar and butter but when it comes to chocolate, there’s not much you can do, you just have to adjust your prices accordingly and hope the customers still come in and purchase from you," he says.
Despite the every day challenges of being a business owner, Sonnier is not letting his shop go sour.
"We roll with the punches, we are just happy from whoever purchases from us. We are happy about it. Good thing about chocolate is that if we don’t sell the bunny, I can chop it up and reuse it, it doesn’t go to waste.”
Sonnier tells KATC it's all about budgeting and being resourceful, so you don't put all your eggs in one basket.
