So no big deal or anything, we’re not saying you should start hoarding Cadbury Snack blocks, and if your boyfriend or girlfriend is actually a gigantic block of chocolate that you made by melting down 70 or so kilos of the stuff and pouring it into a human-shaped mould, it’s definitely not time to panic and start devouring him or her just yet, but the world may be running out of chocolate.
Various sources, including The Age, are reporting that two of the world’s biggest chocolate makers – Mars Inc. and Barry Callibaut, who outsource for the likes of Nestlé, Hershey’s and Cadbury – are concerned, and while they could never come out and just tell us to chill our tits and stop eating all the damn chocolate, that’s kind of what they need us to go ahead and do.
As it stands, the world is currently in a state of chocolate deficit, wherein we’re eating more of the stuff than cocoa farmers are able to produce the raw materials for. The alarming part is that the world’s appetite seems to be growing. Per The Age’s report:
Last year, the world ate roughly 70,000 tons more cocoa than it produced. By 2020, the two chocolate-makers warn that that number could swell to 1 million tons, a more than 14-fold increase; by 2030, they think the deficit could reach 2 million tons.
Dry weather in West Africa has led to a decrease of cocoa production in the region. Then there’s the effect of something called ‘frosty pod’, which sounds like a look Lance Bass‘s hairstylist would have given him circa 2001, but which is actually a nasty fungal disease … something Lance Bass’s hairstylist may also have given him circa 2001, but let’s not dwell on that.
Snobbery is also partly to blame. Your average milk chocolate bar contains about 10% cocoa, whereas dark chocolate, the preference of more refined palates, can contain up to 70% cocoa. This is one very small reason that you can feel good about yourself the next time you sidle up to the office vending machine.
What’s to be done about it? Again, per The Age’s report:
“… an agricultural research group in Central Africa is developing trees that can produce up to seven times the amount of beans traditional cocoa trees can.”
The problem there is that increased volume might lead to a more bland taste.
One other idea would be for us all to eat less chocolate, although…BAHAHAHHAA, sorry, we really thought we could make it to the end of that sentence without laughing if we tried.
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