High cost of 'cheap' chocolate: Prices surging for mass-produced low-quality chocolate

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00:00Easter weekend is the busiest period on the sales calendar for the chocolate industry

00:04with people worldwide buying chocolate in large amounts but with many sweet treats becoming

00:10increasingly expensive due to the rising price of cocoa some are looking for alternatives to

00:15traditional chocolate but how does chocolate without cocoa compare here's a look at a factory

00:21trying out the alternative in Alsace in eastern France with Caroline Bohm.

00:26It looks like chocolate tastes like chocolate but it's not chocolate this is Chaviva a chocolate

00:34without cacao made in the French city of Malouz its biggest advantage it's three times cheaper

00:39than traditional chocolate subject to rising cacao prices after a difficult growing season in West

00:45Africa inside you have roasted sunflower seeds and raisin seeds roasting them reveals aromas like

00:53cocoa very close to chocolate Easter shoppers can't believe their taste buds it's good there's

01:04not much difference with any other chocolate we tried praline and it's very good it's amazing it

01:10really looks like chocolate maybe it's a little sweeter there's a little aftertaste of something

01:15toasted you can't taste the difference you know it but you can't taste it even purists like this

01:21Belgian chocolatier are impressed it's very smooth you can feel that there's quite a lot of added fat

01:28it's very sweet it hurts your teeth a bit but it's not unpleasant with zero cocoa the results are

01:35quite impressive as an alternative it's a fine piece of work but can this product really replace

01:43artisanal chocolate not so fast he says chocolate without cacao could rather serve as a low-cost

01:50alternative useful for products like cereals or chocolate bars and for more on this I can bring

01:56in Miguel Freisholm a chocolate maker and founder of Freisholm chocolate in Copenhagen good morning

02:03Miguel and thanks for joining us how is this rising cocoa prices been affecting your business

02:09well not that much actually because before the crisis I paid three to four times as much as my

02:19cheaper more mass-producing colleagues for the quality of cacao we use so I see the search in

02:26prices more for the cheap chocolate in the supermarkets and is it a trend that you expect to

02:31continue in the industry I expect so both like really cheap copy solutions like you're talking about

02:44before which is not that far from mass-produced chocolate taste so I think but when people say

02:49they can't see the difference is because of the quality of the mainstream chocolate unfortunately no okay

02:54and the chocolate industry and the cocoa trade has often been criticized for dubious ethical practices and

03:00not giving cocoa producers and workers a fair deal what is your own experience been in the industry

03:07I think unfortunately the stories are right there are two million small kids working in the cacao

03:17plantations of West Africa there are probably two three hundred thousand like small child slaves

03:23there and this is the price of the cheap chocolate we have been used to so I see that the cocoa price is

03:29rising right now is actually a good thing in the end for the farmers and also a good thing for the

03:35market and getting what do you say chocolate back to being that luxury that it used to be and as we saw

03:43earlier there are some chocolate makers trying to circumvent this cocoa shortage by using alternative

03:48ingredients you don't seem very impressed by that but can you see this becoming basically more commonplace

03:56in the industry well it's it's it's already there I mean if we buy a cheap cake uh in the supermarket and

04:04and and we think it's chocolate on it's it's basically a compound which is a margarine oil with cocoa powder

04:10and and and sugar uh so I I I see it already there in the cheap market and and I I don't know if if this will

04:19actually replace this uh I see it just as another version of the same um when people don't want to

04:27pay well they will get something not so good and uh do you expect that there might be some sort of uh

04:33pushback among chocolate makers uh particularly those maybe at the more artisanal end of things

04:40to possibly regulate um the uh the manufacturing of of of chocolate products at a European level

04:49I would love for that to happen um the basic thing is in chocolate is that there is such a big

04:56monopolization of the chocolate making so even though we go into a small shop we think are artisanal

05:01it's made with chocolate from uh the maker who makes one third of the world's chocolate uh when you take

05:07wine you take coffee anything like this they have five ten percent of the of the market the artisanal

05:12part of it I mean but in chocolate real artisanal comparing to wine or coffee uh microbrewer beer we

05:19only have 0.1 percent of the market so basically the chocolate market is is very difficult for the

05:25consumer to to how to decode and actually do something about but I think the problem with my

05:32colleagues or some of the people who make filled chocolates not making chocolate from the scratch as I do

05:36is that they use cheap cheap chocolate uh not any uh better than the one we find at the supermarket

05:42and are there any other trends or obstacles that are posing a threat to the industry

05:47well I mean if the if the chocolate companies start paying money to the farmers they they

05:53they will they will solve all their problems but of course if you want to be cheap in the market

05:58that's difficult so I think that's the biggest the biggest problem there you could say

06:03there is plenty of cacao in the world uh but the price have been uh artificially low uh to support

06:10a cheap price in the market right now I think it's probably more natural and I expect the price in

06:14cacao to be around here for the next at least five six years thank you very much for that

06:19but I'm Miguel Frysholm of Frysholm chocolate in Copenhagen thank you

06:32you

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