This Easter, chocolate lovers will no doubt have noticed they had to pay more for their eggs.
Now, the cost of chocolate could soar after changing climate patterns hit cocoa supplies in west Africa.
Seasonal dusty winds from the Sahara have been severe in recent months, blocking out the sunlight needed for cocoa bean pods to grow in Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon – where around three-quarters of the world’s cocoa is produced.
In the previous season, heavy rainfall spread a rotting disease among the cacao trees, which produce cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate.
Chocolate makers have already increased prices for consumers after three years of poor harvests, with Which? saying some Easter eggs and bunnies cost around 50% more this year, while others have shrunk in size.
The global price of cocoa has risen sharply as exports from the Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer, fell by a third in recent months.
The price has already doubled this year, trading at a record high of more than $10,000 (£7,920) per metric ton of cocoa in New York on Tuesday.
But farmers who harvest cocoa beans have raised concerns the increases are not enough to cover their higher production costs and lower yields, which many blame on climate change.
Cacao trees only grow close to the equator and are particularly sensitive to changes in the weather.
Farmers harvest cocoa from the trees, which they sell to local dealers or processing plants. They turn the beans into butter, powder and liquor that can be made into chocolate and sell the products to global chocolate companies.
Cocoa is traded on a regulated global market, with prices set up to a year in advance.
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