Did you know that this year a Galaxy milk chocolate extra large Easter egg is £5.97 in Asda and weighs in at 210g. Last year, the same egg was £4.98, weighing 252g? That’s a 44% increase in the price per 100g. So we learn from the Guardian. What else does the Guardian tell us? Why, it tells us what it always tells us:

The cause? The climate crisis.

The Guardian has been talking to its consumer affairs correspondent, Zoe Wood. This is her take on it:

“It was down to impacts on harvests in west Africa responsible for about 70% of global cacao production– particularly in Ghana and theCôte d’Ivoire. They had very difficult growing conditions, with heat, disease and unusual rainfall in recent years contributing to falling production which led to a shortage of cocoa,” explains Zoe.

Fair enough, so far as it goes, but then she also explains that energy shocks from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the current conflict in the Middle East are also having an impact. So not just climate change, then?

Actually, not climate change at all. Just climate, among many other probably more important factors. It turns out that there’s an 18-month time lag in prices feeding through from global wholesale prices to local retail prices. And those wholesale prices are already coming down rapidly:

Today the price of cocoa is about £2,500 a tonne, but in 2024 it peaked at nearly £9,000.

We’re currently feeling the effects of that 2024 peak when we go to buy our Easter eggs. But if climate change is the problem, how is it that global wholesale prices have fallen so dramatically since that peak? Because of better harvests, which have in turn been due to better weather. As the BBC explained just last month:

…Following a surge in the cost of cocoa – the main ingredient of chocolate – in 2024, prices have since crashed….Prices have fallen for a variety of reasons, partly because a good harvest around the world came at a time of lower demand. Because of the previous high prices, chocolate bars have become smaller and chocolate makers have been using less cocoa. The knock-on effect should mean that chocolate bars will eventually be less expensive…

The problem in 2024, according to Dr Tonya Lander of the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford, was due to a strong El Niño “which, in West Africa, led to drier than usual weather, warmer temperatures and erratic rainfall.” That’s a natural phenomenon at work, so it’s not climate change either. That doesn’t stop her opining that “[a]lthough El Niño contributes to cocoa price volatility, climate change is also likely to have played a part.” She might be correct, but she does little more to justify this claim than to say that according to NASA, 2024 was the hottest year on record, and furthermore, “[c]ocoa is as sensitive to climate variation as many staple crops, or more so, which means we can expect increasing variation in annual cocoa production as climate change progresses.”

And she adds that other factors may have been at work too (I generally incline to the view that whenever climate change takes the rap, it’s usually much more complicated, and there are often other factors at play, many of which might be rather more significant):

Curiously, US trade tariffs may also have indirectly driven up cocoa prices through their effects on the gold market. Financial market instability following the announcement of US trade tariffs in early 2025 drove investors to buy precious metals, including gold. Illegal gold mining was already driving forest losses in Ghana, the sixth largest gold producer globally. With the volatility in cocoa prices and the strength of the gold market, many Ghanaian cocaoa farmers sold their land to gold miners, reducing global cocoa production and causing major river contamination.

I suggest the evidence points very strongly to cocoa’s temporary price hike being due to weather and to other factors, not to climate change. If it were climate change sending everything to hell in a handcart, then one might have expected the situation to continue to deteriorate. But it isn’t. Quite the contrary. Here’s an up-to-date report from ING:

Cocoa prices have collapsed this year as better supply prospects and weaker demand have seen the market return to surplus in the 2024/25 season, while it is also expected that the global market will see another surplus in the 2025/26 marketing year. This has seen London cocoa fall almost 60% this year…

…Better yields and an expansion in plantations are expected to drive an increase in Ecuador’s cocoa production. Ecuador is the third-largest producer and is on track to take the number two spot from Ghana in the coming years. For the 2025/26 season, Ecuador is expected to produce 580k tonnes, up around 4% YoY, continuing its upward trend in output….

…For top producer Ivory Coast, we are forecasting that output will remain relatively stable at around 1.8m tonnes for the 2025/26 season. Good weather should be supportive for the crop, although cocoa arrivals at Ivorian ports are lagging behind last season due to a slow start….

…The bigger issue with West Africa, and specifically the Ivory Coast and Ghana, has been the impact of ageing trees and swollen shoot disease on production. These are structural issues which are not going to be fixed quickly, and therefore we will need to see prices remaining above their historic norms in order to ensure we see adequate investment in supply in the medium to long term.

The Cacao Swollen Shoot Virus (CSSV) is spread by mealybugs, and was identified in Ghana as long ago as the 1930s. It appears to be increasingly problematic in west Africa. If its spread could fairly be attributed to climate change, then it might support the argument that it’s climate change that’s responsible for cocoa shortages. However, despite much research into the topic, including this and some speculation as to whether it is influenced by climate, there doesn’t seem at this stage to be a confirmed link. Indeed, according to Wikipedia:

Light intensity has the effect of reducing swelling in shoots while plants in the shade show more severe symptoms. Temperature and nutrition have no significant effect. Since mealy bugs are the vectors of the virus, environmental conditions favorable to mealy bugs could increase the spread of the virus. Planococcus njalensis population density is closely correlated with density of ants in the genus Crematogaster, which build protective carton tents over the mealy bug colonies. High-density planting can facilitate the spread of the virus when mealy bugs are able to go from plant to plant through the interlocked canopy. Aside from crawling from plant to plant, mealy bugs can be dispersed by wind as well. In controlled trials, 340 feet was the maximum distance a mealy bug could be spread from an infected plant to a cacao seedling by wind dispersal. In dry conditions, aerial dispersal is increased. [My emphasis].

Whenever climate change is the fall guy it’s worth looking at some specialist websites to look at trends and more informed opinions. The Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa website offers some interesting information:

Cocoa production has increased steadily over the past 40 years, with up to 95% of cocoa beans traded on international commodity markets. The cocoa market is volatile and subject to various trends and fluctuations. The ups and downs are triggered by, among other things, political uncertainties, weather-related production shortfalls and overproduction in producing countries. The last low in prices was reached in 2016/2017, when a bumper harvest caused prices to fall to their lowest level in ten years. Since then, prices have been rising steadily.

It also contains an interesting graph, which I urge you to look at. See if you can spot the negative impact of climate change on cocoa production. I can’t. There are a few ups and downs along the way probably, in part at least, the result of variable harvests from variable weather, but the overall trend is relentlessly positive.

Our World in Data is also worth a look. Not much sign of a climate crisis there either.

Perhaps the final word should be given to the International Cocoa Organisation (“an inter-governmental organization established in 1973 under the auspices of the United Nations and operating within the framework of successive International Cocoa Agreements”):

While there is a clear trend of increasing cocoa production, yearly outputs are extremely volatile. This is typically the result of unexpected changes in weather conditions as well as the spread of pests and diseases affecting certain production areas. Moreover, part of this volatility also comes from unexpected overperformance or underperformance in production, due to the limited knowledge on the cocoa resources in cocoa producing countries….

…Cocoa pests and diseases have a very negative effect on yearly cocoa production volumes, requiring much more natural resources (land) than would normally be the case without such losses. Resistant planting material can greatly reduce crop losses, as can best practices in farming techniques. Special efforts appear to be essential in order to prevent and contain the international and global spread of cocoa pests and diseases.

Weather is definitely an issue, climate change doesn’t get a mention. But pests and diseases are a big problem. Nevertheless, the clear trend is one of increasing production.

Enjoy your Easter eggs.