Amid Cocoa Shortage, Investors Develop Taste For Cocoa-Free Chocolate Startups

In recent weeks, chocolate lovers have witnessed the resurgence of two of the most chilling words in the history of commodity market headlines: cocoa shortage.

Over the past year, cocoa prices have roughly quadrupled, following poor harvests in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two countries that produce most of the world’s supply. Processors have scaled back or shuttered, leaving chocolate-makers without the usual reserves of cocoa butter and liquor to produce confections.

The cocoa situation looks much more protracted than your usual commodity market cyclicality, as we enter the fourth year in a row of poor harvests. Consumption of chocolate products, meanwhile, continues to head steadily higher, with the global market forecast to exceed $250 billion this year.

Against this backdrop of constrained supply and surging demand, we’re seeing an uptick in investor interest around startups developing alternatives to chocolate.

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