The "unheard of" surge in cocoa costs, which today has exceeded 10 thousand dollars/tonne, will not have repercussions on the cost of the various chocolate sweets at Easter - products already processed, packaged and delivered - but after "if the so-called resistance threshold were to be reached, the funds continue to sell and the surge returns to reasonable prices" there will be no major problems.
On the contrary, "if cocoa remains at 10 thousand dollars there will be further increases".
In other words for businesses "the effect of what is happening is to live from day to day trying to guess knowing that mistakes will be made".
This is the comment on the soaring price of cocoa by Riccardo Illy, president of Polo del Gusto, whose parent company is Domori, a company producing high quality chocolate products.
The industrialist analyzed the reasons for the increase, which then dropped at around 6pm to the very high cost of 9,700 dollars: "A sum of factors, natural, economic and financial. The
natural ones are the drought which hit the two main producing countries, Ghana and Ivory Coast, and a disease that has affected plants, especially in Ivory Coast which has reduced production."
The economic factor is instead "the very long period of raw material at the low cost of 2,500 dollars per ton, a quarter of today's price, which did not allow producers to renew the plantations. Like the vines, the cocoa plant also reduces productivity over time and vasosubstituted, which was not done".
Finally, "like a poisoned cherry on the cake, investment funds speculated on cocoa, causing the disaster".
He thinks that it is no longer men who decide but robots: "If man is difficult to predict, it is impossible for the machine".
Therefore, with this "upheaval of the market we are preparing for the autumn-winter season, but predicting purchases, production and establishing sales prices is almost impossible. Companies, accustomed to working in the long term, are forced to live from day to day".
However, there is a downside to the coin: if such a high cost were to remain, "those who could not buy fertilizers or an irrigation system will have the opportunity to do so".
Possibly with an increase in production in the next harvest and a consequent reduction in cost.
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