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Not a shortage, per se, but apparently cocoa products are getting more expensive due to a poor growing season or disease or some other thing heralding the end of days.
Wife sent me this the other day. It is about double what it usually is.
Check out the Amazon price rising (not an Amazon link):
Does a reduction to quality of chocolate count as a shortage? Cadburys turned to shit with a new recipe recently. Recently had white chocolate that contained no cocoa butter at all, how the fuck can they even call it white chocolate? All palm oil and it was so bad I threw it in the bin.
It was so bad I now check the ingredients list on chocolate bars before buying them.
I was looking at Easter candy at the grocery store. A small, hollow chocolate bunny is almost $10. The bargain-bin ones that used to be $0.99 are $3. I feel like coffee and chocolate have both skyrocketed in the last year.
We happened to be a drug store yesterday in the Easter candy aisle. We saw the bargain basement horrible candy maker "Palmer" with two different hollow candy rabbits.
Palmer's Parsnip Pete:
Palmer's Peter Rabbit:
Both of these were side by side and marked at $8.99 each. It took me a bit to figure out why there would be two different candy rabbits from the same company, sold at the same price.
Peter Rabbit is 5oz and is chocolate
Parsnip Pete is 7oz and isn't chocolate! - looking at the ingredients is all sugar and hydrogenated oils. Only a tiny bit of chocolate in it.
Palmer is the worst chocolate I've ever run across. Even if I'm offered it for free I won't eat it. I don't consider it chocolate, and with their other lines of products (like Pete) that isn't just a preference on my part but a provable fact.
Notice how one says milk chocolate and the other says milk chocolate flavored. For something to be called "milk chocolate" in the USA, it must have at least 10% by weight of chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor is the result of grinding cacao, and must be 50-60% cacao fat.
What you see, especially around Easter, is a lot of cheaper candies labeled chocolate flavored or chocolatey or similar, instead of chocolate, because they don't meet the minimum cacao requirement. You can see this with other processed foods, as well. The companies aren't trying to be trendy or cute, they're complying with regulations.
Yup
Hmm. WalMart's online store also shows the price for Hershey's chocolate syrup up.
On the other hand, looking at Hershey's chocolate bars on Amazon, the price isn't up:
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B086LHQHLT
And looking at a bag of sugar doesn't show any dramatic change:
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01BWM57CK
EDIT: Hershey's cocoa powder is up over about the same timeframe as the syrup, though:
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00AZNG8O4
Wow.