CHOCOLATE
Chocolate will run out in SEVEN years' time
by Fiona Cowood
October 2, 2020. Put this date in your calendar now, because this is when experts believe we will run out of chocolate.
The Willy Wonkas of the confectionary industry met last week to discuss the fact that there are just not enough cocoa plantations across the globe to feed the demand for chocolate.
Chocolate taster and expert Angus Kennedy told the Daily Star: "There will be a chocolate shortage, and there isn't a solution to the problem. Seven years is what we think we have left. Experts have worked out that we need 2.3 globes to accommodate man's needs for chocolate in terms of forestry and space. We need another Earth, basically, if we carry on at this rate. The problem we've got is that much of the space that was used for cocoa plantations is no longer there. The Chinese love their cars, and they have found that rubber makes more money than cocoa and at a much quicker pace. Cocoa farms are being chopped down and turned into rubber plantations because they get a better yield.
So what will we be eating instead? Experts predict smaller bars, filled with raisins, biscuits, nougat and nuts. And the chocolate we do have will be more expensive and more like a gloopy chocolate-esque substance made from palm oil and vegetable fats.
"I have tasted the chocolate bar of the future, and it's nothing like the chocolate we know and love," said Angus Kennedy, editor of Kennedy's Confection magazine. "It will be much sweeter as sugar is the cheapest ingredient and can be used to hide the fact that there is less cocoa powder," he said.
We must be off to start a stockpile…
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/reports/a24453/chocolate-run-out-2020/
by Fiona Cowood
October 2, 2020. Put this date in your calendar now, because this is when experts believe we will run out of chocolate.
The Willy Wonkas of the confectionary industry met last week to discuss the fact that there are just not enough cocoa plantations across the globe to feed the demand for chocolate.
Chocolate taster and expert Angus Kennedy told the Daily Star: "There will be a chocolate shortage, and there isn't a solution to the problem. Seven years is what we think we have left. Experts have worked out that we need 2.3 globes to accommodate man's needs for chocolate in terms of forestry and space. We need another Earth, basically, if we carry on at this rate. The problem we've got is that much of the space that was used for cocoa plantations is no longer there. The Chinese love their cars, and they have found that rubber makes more money than cocoa and at a much quicker pace. Cocoa farms are being chopped down and turned into rubber plantations because they get a better yield.
So what will we be eating instead? Experts predict smaller bars, filled with raisins, biscuits, nougat and nuts. And the chocolate we do have will be more expensive and more like a gloopy chocolate-esque substance made from palm oil and vegetable fats.
"I have tasted the chocolate bar of the future, and it's nothing like the chocolate we know and love," said Angus Kennedy, editor of Kennedy's Confection magazine. "It will be much sweeter as sugar is the cheapest ingredient and can be used to hide the fact that there is less cocoa powder," he said.
We must be off to start a stockpile…
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/reports/a24453/chocolate-run-out-2020/
Chocolate makers warn that the world is running out of chocolate
Fox News, November 17, 2014
We’re eating too much chocolate.
That’s what two major chocolate suppliers are warning amid dwindling cacao supplies.
Mars, Inc. and Swiss-based chocolate giant Barry Callebaut say people are consuming more cocoa than farmers are able to produce, the Washington Post reports.
Last year, the world ate roughly 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. By 2020, the two chocolate-makers warn that that number could reach 1 million metric tons --and could exceed an additional 1 million tons every decade for the foreseeable future.
Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Cost and Ghana. But disease, drought and farmers opting to grow more productive crops such as corn and rubber have made growing conditions less than ideal.
This is bad news for chocolate lovers –and anyone who has come to expect the sweet treat being as plentiful and cheap as raspberries in the middle of winter.
John Mason of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council, told the Independent that “in 20 years, chocolate will be like caviar.” “It will become so rare and expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it,” he said.
But there may be hope in sight.
According to Bloomberg, farmers in Costa Rica are working on several a new disease-resistant breeds of cacao.
Strains -- called R-1, R-4 and R-6 --are showing promise not only for its ability to resist certain types of cacao-killing diseases but because its taste is superior to that of other strains being developed.
Right now production of the beans is very limited, stymied in part by how long it takes to grow cacao. It takes about two years for a cacao seedling to produce fruit and about 10 years for its flavor to mature.
In 2009, R-4 and R-6 each won awards for flavor at the the International Cocoa Awards at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris.
While it’s unclear if these new strains will reverse a global chocolate shortage, Bloomberg suggests cacao beans could be a sweet promise for the future.
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/11/17/chocolate-makers-warn-that-world-is-running-out-chocolate/
Fox News, November 17, 2014
We’re eating too much chocolate.
That’s what two major chocolate suppliers are warning amid dwindling cacao supplies.
Mars, Inc. and Swiss-based chocolate giant Barry Callebaut say people are consuming more cocoa than farmers are able to produce, the Washington Post reports.
Last year, the world ate roughly 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. By 2020, the two chocolate-makers warn that that number could reach 1 million metric tons --and could exceed an additional 1 million tons every decade for the foreseeable future.
Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Cost and Ghana. But disease, drought and farmers opting to grow more productive crops such as corn and rubber have made growing conditions less than ideal.
This is bad news for chocolate lovers –and anyone who has come to expect the sweet treat being as plentiful and cheap as raspberries in the middle of winter.
John Mason of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council, told the Independent that “in 20 years, chocolate will be like caviar.” “It will become so rare and expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it,” he said.
But there may be hope in sight.
According to Bloomberg, farmers in Costa Rica are working on several a new disease-resistant breeds of cacao.
Strains -- called R-1, R-4 and R-6 --are showing promise not only for its ability to resist certain types of cacao-killing diseases but because its taste is superior to that of other strains being developed.
Right now production of the beans is very limited, stymied in part by how long it takes to grow cacao. It takes about two years for a cacao seedling to produce fruit and about 10 years for its flavor to mature.
In 2009, R-4 and R-6 each won awards for flavor at the the International Cocoa Awards at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris.
While it’s unclear if these new strains will reverse a global chocolate shortage, Bloomberg suggests cacao beans could be a sweet promise for the future.
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/11/17/chocolate-makers-warn-that-world-is-running-out-chocolate/