Future Generations May Never Know What Chocolate Tastes Like — And Climate Change Is To Blame

Every sweetness holds a story of bitterness, including the one you taste in your Hershey’s Kisses, Cadbury’s Easter bunnies, or Milka’s creamy bars. The next time you bite off your chocolate bar, imagine a fussy tree standing in the tropical rainforests of Southern America. Picture the clusters of pink or purple pods dangling from its branches, trapping seeds destined to be crushed for your sweet-toothed fantasies. A cocoa tree is finicky and demanding by nature, whether it is sunshine, temperature, or moisture, according to Kew Gardens.

However, as climate change slowly and subtly hurts these rainforests, the groves of cocoa trees are left to suffer and disintegrate. In a conversation with North Country Public Radio, food and science writer Yasmin Tayag revealed that cocoa production is dwindling, which means Generation Beta and Generation Gamma might not be able to know what chocolate tastes like.

Nicknamed “Theobroma cacao,” which translates to “food of the gods,” a cocoa tree supplies the beans that are used to make chocolate. Chocolate, the sweet, creamy, ambrosial treat that no sane human ever refuses, is nowadays under a dire threat. However, as the monster of global warming overshadows the skies and the seas of the planet, the trees that produce the beans for chocolate-making are finding it difficult to survive and thrive in this changing environment. Heat waves are blasting these tropical rainforests with scorching winds, erratic rainfall patterns, inconsistent rainfall, and environmental pollution is leaching the fertility from the soils. 

All these factors, and others, accumulated over the years, could pose a serious risk and maybe even trigger an extinction event. Around 66 million years ago, a giant asteroid wiped away dinosaurs from the planet, and this time, this giant heat monster could wipe away these cocoa trees. “Most of the world's chocolate comes from two countries in West Africa. That is the Ivory Coast and Ghana. So when the weather there gets weird, that really affects the entire global supply,” explained Tayag.

She also called attention to the “black pod disease,” a deadly fungus that causes the cocoa pods to disintegrate and die while still clinging to the branches. So when the farmer arrives to pluck the pod and explode it open to extract the beans, the beans are no longer there. All there is, inside, is this fungus. Not to forget the “swollen shoot virus,” which isolates the tree in a brutal dry spell, causing its leaves and fruits to die by sucking up all their moisture.

This aligns with the recent price hike Hershey’s imposed on its chocolate candy, after noticing the skyrocketing prices of cocoa beans, according to a report by CBS News. Speaking to the news outlet, a spokesperson from the company said that this change “reflects the reality of rising ingredient costs, including the unprecedented cost of cocoa.” According to another report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, cocoa’s prices soared by a whopping 73% in the past five years.

Another company representative revealed that Hershey’s is now focusing on "less cocoa-intensive" products as it navigates this mushrooming cocoa cost inflation. Hershey’s is not the only brand gravitating its focus on “less cocoa” products. A company named Planet A Foods also sells a chocolate bar named “ChoViva,” that looks and tastes like a typical milk chocolate, but is purely made of oats. Reading about this chocolate evolution, one might wonder how and where it originated.

But looking back, one can see that it was always there. Humans just didn’t pay attention to it until the crisis exploded on their heads. Environmental scientist Sophia Carodenuto shared with The Atlantic that chocolate has “been a mounting problem for years,” but what we’re seeing now is a “little bit of an explosion” in the crop’s struggles. Today, with enhanced awareness, the entire world can envision the upcoming chocolate-less dystopia where children and adults will be denied this heavenly, god’s very own favorite treat. Imagine having to gift oats instead of chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Doesn’t sound too nice.

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