Why chocolate is becoming a luxury again – the bitter truth behind it

Happiness is brown and wrapped in tin foil; it sticks to your hands, melts in your mouth, and smells of peace. The taste of the first post-war chocolate in the summer of 1945 struck Ruth Klüger as "proof that life isn't just about fear and hunger."

She is 15 years old. As a Jewish girl, she survived Auschwitz, having escaped from the concentration camp just a few months earlier. And now she sits in Lower Bavaria in front of her first care package. Inside: canned meat, oatmeal, toilet paper, and the now-famous Ration D military chocolate (a Hershey Bar). "It was a revelation," Klüger writes in her memoirs, "weiter leben." "I remember the chocolate melting on my tongue, and the feeling that something sweet, something good, had suddenly entered my life again."

Chocolate symbolizes the good, the sweet, and the right. Many war children remember that magical moment when, after years of suffering, life once again allowed for luxury and pleasure. They smelled it, touched the magical substance, and ate it tentatively, in small bites. And quite a few had tears in their eyes.

“I have never eaten anything so sweet,” wrote a child to the “Raisin Bomber” pilot Gail Halvorsen in 1948 during the Berlin Airlift. “I cried when I tasted the chocolate.” And Helga Schneider, eight years old at the end of the war, wrote: “It was as if freedom itself was melting on my tongue.”

There's no doubt that love connects humans and chocolate. As a source of happiness and comfort, this delicate seductress holds a place of honor in the collective heart of humanity. It is the queen of indulgences, a sweet temptation and venial sin rolled into one. "Chocolate is no substitute for love," declared US author Miranda Ingram. "Love is a substitute for chocolate."

Every German consumes a good 9.5 kilograms of chocolate per year, which is roughly equivalent to one chocolate bar per day. A solid cube containing Germany's entire annual chocolate consumption would have an edge length of a good 80 meters.

But there's a problem: Prices are exploding. Since 2020, chocolate has risen by 32 percent in Germany. This former luxury item of the wealthy European aristocracy is well on its way to becoming an exclusive indulgence again. Annual sales of chocolate in Germany are eight billion euros, worldwide the figure is 108 billion euros, and the trend is rapidly rising. The desire for chocolate remains high. But there is less and less chocolate for the same price. And this is precisely in times when chocolate could help to alleviate the exhausting chaos and grueling stress.

A look at supermarket prices reveals that chocolate bars are 28 percent more expensive than a year ago, and chocolate bars are even 46 percent more expensive. Europeans' favorite treat (a good 40 percent of global chocolate production is consumed in Europe) is once again becoming a prestige product. A bar of Milka chocolate now costs €1.99 instead of €1.49, and Ritter Sport charges up to €2.19 for 100 grams.

The main reason: Cocoa, the most important raw material for the planet's rapidly growing chocolate hunger, is more sought after than ever. For many years, the price of a ton of cocoa was between 1,700 and 2,500 euros. Since 2020, it has risen, at times reaching as high as 9,000 euros per ton. In just one year, the price doubled. Cocoa butter is even 115 percent more expensive.

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This isn't just because gigantic markets like India and China are discovering European chocolate. It's also because cocoa—like coffee—can only be grown on finite arable land near the equator. It's because there have recently been two consecutive weak harvest years due to droughts, floods, and massive pest infestations. And it's because food speculators are buying up cocoa en masse on the commodity exchanges in London and New York—and waiting for prices to rise.

The turmoil sweeping the industry is palpable even in a gray industrial park in Lippstadt. Here, Christian Frochte-Peters (57), third-generation owner of the family business Peters Pralinen GmbH, has created a cheerful, colorful space between car dealerships and furniture stores that celebrates the blessings of chocolate: The five-story "Peters Chocolate World," in a retro-futuristic steampunk style with gears, steam jets, and tall top hats, is a café, glass factory, and exhibition on the company's history all in one – factory outlet and guided tours included.

Lord of the chocolates: Christian Frochte-Peters in the "Peters SchokoWelt" in Lippstadt.

Source: Imre Grimm

Families take photos in front of the logo on the facade. Up to 400 busloads of chocolate lovers head to Lippstadt every year, forgetting all their weight-loss resolutions while enjoying apple caramel Calvados chocolates and pumpkin seed nougat with cocoa nibs. In a 2,000-square-meter hall next door, 140 employees produce chocolates and pastries.

Of course, the biggest chocolate hype of the last few decades hasn't passed Peters by either: the Dubai chocolate, which influencers have hyped up as a global trend, filled with pistachio cream, sesame paste (tahini), and kadayif pastry threads (angel hair). "We were one of the first to get involved with Dubai chocolate – and one of the first to abandon it," says Frochte-Peters. "Our chocolatiers ultimately preferred to focus on classics with true craftsmanship."

The market for pistachio cream was temporarily wiped out. The prices of ingredients exploded. "The price development was almost incomprehensible in some places." A kilo of angel hair usually cost two euros wholesale. At one point, it was 20 euros. "The market has since turned around, and many warehouses are full, but demand has dropped significantly."

"Chocolate is emotion," says Frochte-Peters. "You have to stand out in the market today. You have to offer customers a good feeling and create a fantasy story." The nucleus of his business was an ice cream parlor that his grandfather – a local legend in Lippstadt known as "Kalte Franz" – had opened in 1936, "long before the Italians." His father then entered the chocolate production business 35 years ago. Peters chocolates were soon distributed in Lufthansa's first and business class and are now available in upscale retail stores in many countries around the world, such as Galeria – but not at discounters. The industrial business is not Frochte-Peters's thing.

In the mass market, manufacturers make products last longer by reducing moisture. Milk powder instead of cream? Fruit flavors instead of real fruit? Not with Frochte-Peters. "The product has a firmer bite and a longer shelf life, but less delicious." But his company is also suffering from the high cocoa prices. The company sources its main raw material not from the Belgian world market leader in cocoa, Barry Callebaut, but from Lubeca in Lübeck – delivered in liquid form by tanker to Lippstadt.

Handcrafted for sweet temptation: Pastry chef Lara-Sophie Sasse at work producing pralines.

Source: Imre Grimm

With annual sales of €18 million, Peters is a David among the Goliaths of chocolate production. Six companies dominate 80 percent of the global market. They are market leader Mars Wrigley (M&M's, Snickers, Twix), followed by Ferrero (Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Kinder), Mondelēz (Cadbury, Milka, Toblerone), the Japanese company Meiji, the Hershey Company (Hershey's), and Nestlé (KitKat, Smarties). Lindt alone produces 240 million Easter bunnies annually for the German market alone. (And no, they are not melted down into Santa Clauses if they aren't sold.)

The cocoa trade itself is dominated by four large corporations whose names are barely known to end consumers: Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Olam, and Ecom. They purchase the cocoa grown by 5.5 million smallholder farmers, primarily in West Africa and South America. Almost half of the world's cocoa comes from Côte d'Ivoire, 14 percent from Ghana, and 9 percent from Ecuador.

The journey from bean to pleasure is arduous. The intensive, fragile cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao) thrives only on warm, humid plantations near the equator. Its fruits resemble brownish-red footballs, each containing a good 30 cocoa beans in a thick pulp. So, strictly speaking, chocolate is—hurray!—a vegetable.

Cocoa farmers cut the beans from the tree with machetes, then separate the beans and pulp. They let the beans ferment in tubs for a good week, which stops germination and intensifies the flavor. They then dry the beans in the sun for another week.

The vast majority of the goods are sent in air-permeable jute sacks to the few manufacturers who dominate the global market. In their factories, the beans are cleaned and roasted to remove the shell and kill bacteria. The naked beans are freed of any remaining shell residue using compressed air and ground into a thick cocoa mass – the raw material for tens of thousands of different types of chocolate.

Depending on the desired flavor, the mixture is mixed with sugar, cocoa butter, milk powder, and flavorings, then stirred and aerated in conching mills for hours or days. It then matures in large containers, sometimes for weeks, until it is heated again under controlled conditions and repeatedly cooled to achieve the perfect consistency and texture. Only then can it be poured into bars or shaped into confectionery, bars, or pralines.

What distinguishes perfect chocolate from cheaper chocolate? It's the texture of the sugar crystals. Manufacturers distinguish between six "solidification states," which differ in appearance, taste, and melting point. Form 5 is perfect. Achieving it is complex. The reward: It melts at 33.9 degrees Celsius, close to body temperature. "Better," long-conched chocolate can be identified by its straight, smooth, barely fibrous, whitish edge.

But this multi-billion dollar market has a bitter aftertaste – it's the dark side of chocolate. Even 30 years after the largest manufacturers promised to eradicate child labor in cocoa farming by 2005, according to a study by the University of Chicago, up to 1.5 million minors still work on cocoa plantations, primarily in West Africa. Tens of thousands of them are forcibly transported from Mali or Burkina Faso to the Ivory Coast or "sold" by their destitute parents and work under slave-like conditions.

The bitter conclusion of the Inkota Network initiative: "Child labor has not decreased in the last 10 years." The proportion of children exposed to hazardous chemicals during work has actually increased. Many corporations have launched their own Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation Systems (CLMRS). But the effects are minimal as long as farmers earn only a little over a third of a living wage.

Manufacturers try to suggest fairness and ecological responsibility with colorful labels. Customers are also increasingly paying attention to sustainable chocolate produced under fair conditions. But it's virtually impossible to buy chocolate whose manufacturers can truly guarantee that child labor was not involved at any point in the supply chain. The industry had set a goal of reducing child labor in cocoa farming by 70 percent by 2020. Inkota expert Johannes Schorling concludes: "The chocolate industry has broken its promises. Consumers in Germany must expect that their chocolate bar is highly likely to contain exploitative child labor."

Sought-after raw material: Cocoa beans can only be grown at the equator.

Source: Imre Grimm

A recent WDR report by filmmaker Michael Höft demonstrated how inhumane working conditions are in some places. While filming on cocoa plantations in Côte d'Ivoire, he had no trouble finding 13-year-old children at work. They toil from morning to night. They don't go to school. They carry heavy sacks and, wearing sandals and without any protection, handle toxic glyphosate or other pesticides that have long been banned in Europe. And no doctor treats the festering wounds the machetes leave on their legs. Guards prevent them from escaping.

"If I get a child from Benin, I have to pay the intermediary," a plantation owner says openly into Höft's camera. "The father then gets part of the money." The "owner" rarely pays a fixed wage. At 17 or 18, they are allowed to go their own way. Without any training. Without being able to read or write. And without any prospects.

They have no idea about the luxury product whose raw materials they are harvesting. Only two percent of global chocolate production goes to Africa. Most of these children have never eaten chocolate in their lives. They can't remember the last time they saw their parents. "My parents didn't have the money to send me to school," says a twelve-year-old. Reporter Höft concludes: The corporations' alleged fight against child labor is little more than a marketing promise.

Not all forms of child labor are problematic. However, according to the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Core Labor Standards 138 and 182, forced labor and child slavery, as well as all forms of work that may be harmful to the safety or physical or mental health of children, are prohibited. According to Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to "just and favorable conditions of work" and "fair and favorable remuneration" ensuring "for themselves and their families an existence worthy of human dignity."

Manufacturers and retailers are constantly defining new fairness goals, for example, in the Forum for Sustainable Cocoa, which the German government established, but implementation is slow. Aldi Süd reports that it is "extremely difficult to know exactly where the cocoa comes from, even for certified cocoa." Barry Callebaut assures that 91 percent of the farmers in its supply chains are already subject to CLMRS systems. However, comprehensive documentation of child labor does not equate to its eradication.

The Lübeck-based supplier Lubeca even reports: “Due to the sharp rise in cocoa prices, many customers are currently foregoing certifications.” This means that the topic of sustainability and fairness loses momentum as soon as cost pressure increases.

Mass child labor is the dark secret of the chocolate world, the bitter underside of sweet temptation, so to speak. Little of the chocolate industry's wealth reaches the producing countries. Most cocoa farmers live below the poverty line. About 36 percent of the price of a bar of chocolate goes to retailers, 23 percent to the manufacturer, 10 percent to the cocoa mass producer (miller), 6 percent to middlemen and exporters, 15 percent to the manufacturers of other ingredients, a few percent to other service providers – and only 4 to 6 percent to the cocoa farmer.

In addition, cocoa is a land hog. To produce one kilogram, farmers need 20 square meters of land. For rice, it's only 2.5 square meters, and for wheat, only 1.8 square meters. As a result, deforestation is occurring on a massive scale. Ivory Coast has lost a good 80 percent of its rainforest since 1960.

Peters in Lippstadt is also aware of the ethical issues surrounding cocoa production. Frochte-Peters: "Our cocoa comes from long-standing partners in South America. Our supplier guarantees not only the highest quality, but also adherence to clear standards regarding climate protection, sustainability, and fair wages." In South America, working conditions are better, the soils more fertile – "and the quality of the cocoa is significantly higher than in many other growing regions, especially West Africa."

The planned European supply chain law, says the chocolate boss, means that cocoa and coffee producers alike would have to set up radio masts in the most remote areas to track every single bag. However, there is no money for this locally. Producers cannot afford to meet the European requirements – so the market disappears.

So why don't the importers pay for the cell towers and the necessary infrastructure? "Global players will certainly consider this. But there are markets other than Europe – without such regulations. "Then they simply sell the cocoa to China or India, where demand for luxury products is currently rising massively. And Europe gets nothing."

Cell towers and traceable bags won't solve the problem of child labor, says Frochte-Peters. "Importers must pay cocoa farmers decent prices," he says. "Otherwise, the entire family will continue to work on the plantations. Europe can't decide this alone. Otherwise, a supply chain law will simply change trade routes. And chocolate will become even more expensive."

The global triumph of "solid" chocolate is a phenomenon of the last 200 years. However, cocoa is an ancient magical substance. More than 5,000 years ago, cocoa was a ceremonial utensil, status symbol, currency, and blessing all rolled into one, a "gift from the gods," as the Aztecs, Maya, Mokaya, and Olmec, the great cultures of Central America, believed. The Maya colored their cocoa red with annatto seeds to make it resemble the blood of their ritual sacrifices—a vegan version of sacrificial blood, so to speak.

They didn't screw everything up

What Spanish conquerors brought to Europe from Central America around 1550 tasted bitter and uneven. In 1606, the Italian merchant Francesco Carletti, inspired by travels to the West Indies, made the first drinking chocolate in his homeland. The trendy beverage quickly spread to Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

For a good 300 years, the aristocracy bravely downed the concoction because it was rare and fashionable. London's upper classes met in "chocolate houses" with a shudder of pleasure for what they considered a pleasantly sinful treat.

In 1828, the Dutch chemist Casparus van Houten patented a pressing process for extracting cocoa butter from hulled beans. What remained was "Dutch cocoa" in powder form. Then, in 1847, the English company JS Fry & Sons produced the first solid bars of cocoa powder, sugar, and cocoa butter—the beginning of today's global love affair with chocolate. The Swiss chemist Henri Nestlé dehydrated milk to create milk powder, and the chocolate manufacturer Daniel Peter stirred it into the still-bitter chocolate, inventing the milder "milk chocolate." In 1879, the Swiss Rodolphe Lindt developed the "conching" process.

At the end of this historical development are all the things that brought tears to Ruth Klüger's eyes 80 years ago. And what today sits on the overflowing shelves at Peters in Lippstadt: Kirschwasser truffles. Nougat variations. Almond cream marble pralines. Royal macadamia vanilla.

Virtually no one can resist this temptation. It's true what the American writer John Tullius once wrote: "Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth is lying."