Insider: How climate is shaping the taste — and price — of your chocolate

Chocolate lovers might want to savor their next bite. Cocoa prices are at record highs, and changing weather patterns could reshape the industry from bean to bar.

“It’s just like agriculture anywhere in the US,” says Katie Alfheim, owner of Conch Chocolate in Columbia. “If you’re having weather conditions that are not favorable to your crop, it’s not going to grow nearly as much. You’re not going to get as many good, in this case, cocoa beans.”

According to Climate Central, El Niño patterns bring unseasonably dry weather to West Africa, where the majority of the world’s cocoa is grown — 60% in the Ivory Coast alone. Add rising temperatures, and instead of a recipe for cocoa growth, it's a recipe for disaster.

For big manufacturers, the hit is direct. Hershey's Chocolate recently came out with a statement forecasting price hikes. The company described them as a "low double-digit" increase, not related to tariffs but rather to the record high cocoa prices.

For craft chocolate makers like Katie, the impact is more nuanced. “Being a bar chocolate maker, it’s not necessarily as direct an impact to us because a lot of us do not source from Ivory Coast,” she said. “We’re trying to highlight different regions around the world.”

That variety is intentional. “Having the flexibility of getting beans from different countries is to highlight all the different natural flavors of chocolate around the world,” Katie said. “A bean from Madagascar is not going to taste the same as a bean from Ecuador, Hawaii, Thailand — they’re all different."

Still, no chocolatier is immune to global cocoa trends. “If there’s a shortage, that will affect us all,” Katie said. “But the producers of cocoa are constantly innovating. You see the crops constantly evolving and changing. This industry wouldn’t be possible without all the players in it.”

And while the world’s sweet tooth might be tested, Katie still has faith the industry will adapt — whether that means smaller bars, higher price tags, or new farming innovations.