Oh dear! The bill for your dinner date just went up. Blame it on pricey cocoa, coffee, palm oil & sugar
chocolates. Bills at quick service and fine-dining restaurants may rise 5-8% starting this month as prices of cocoa, coffee, palm oil and sugar have surged over the past quarter. This will be the first such increase in about 1.5 years, said industry executives and restaurateurs.
Prices of cocoa and coffee are at all-time highs and palm oil has risen 10% Y-o-Y. Executives at a dozen restaurant and cafe chains said they are evaluating price hikes this month itself.
Aseem Grover, owner of the upscale The Big Chill Cafe and dessert chain The Big Chill Cakery, is monitoring costs carefully.
“There is a steep surge in commodity prices and inflation is making it increasingly tougher to balance profitability,” Grover said. “We are evaluating the situation closely.”
Cocoa prices have risen to a record, touching over $10,000 per tonne, following disappointing harvests in key producing countries such as Ghana and Ivory Coast. Cocoa prices have doubled in the JanuaryMarch quarter from the preceding one.
“Bad news. We’re pausing production of our milk chocolates. And hiking prices for our dark chocolates… Because real food comes at a real cost,” Shashank Mehta, founder and chief executive of packaged health food company The Whole Truth, wrote on LinkedIn last week.
He added that cocoa prices are at their highest in 45 years and that in just one year, prices of the commodity had risen over 150%, while cocoa butter is up 300%.
Calling this a “devastating season for cocoa farmers”, Mehta said, “There is an unprecedented
