This past week, the world's two largest chocolate producing companies reported that in the near future they may not be able to produce enough chocolate.
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Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut are the world's largest two producers of chocolate. Within the past few years, many of the chocolate crops have been destroyed due to a fungus. According to the article, this fungus has killed 30 to 40 percent of the global production of chocolate.
Unfortunately, this isn't the only problem. There are some countries whose demand for chocolate is too demanding such as the United States, and many European countries. But, the Asian demand for chocolate is also increasing. Although, the current average consumption by Chinese is only 5% percent of the average in the United States, that number is expected to quickly grow.
So what can we do to help prevent a chocolate shortage?
Well, one idea is to include less real chocolate in chocolate candy and sweets. By adding a lower percentage of cocoa in "chocolate" candy, there would be less demand. The problem with this idea is fairly simple, if the amount of cocoa in chocolate candy is drastically lowered, can we still call chocolate candy, chocolate?
