Consumers have paid 21 per cent more for a box of chocolates this Valentine’s Day compared to last year because of rising cocoa prices.
Chocolates that cost £10 last February are now just over £12, an analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics by Round Our Way.
Prices have risen because of extreme weather impacting the crops of cocoa and sugar.
Roger Harding, director of Round Our Way, said: “If you’re short of money this Valentine’s Day, it might be all because the lady loves Milk Tray and cocoa beans hate climate change.
“The cost of living crisis has robbed us of many of life’s luxuries and now, the extreme weather brought on by climate change is driving up chocolate prices too.
“Treating a loved one shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. We need politicians to back solutions like clean energy so we can tackle climate change, and stop the weather extremes and food price rises from getting worse.”
The Ivory Coast is the UK’s main supplier of cocoa, made up 79 per cent of all the beans imported in 2022.
But In December 2023, both Ivory Coast and Ghana – the two biggest cocoa producers globally – experienced intense rains that decimated cocoa yields, with the wet conditions causing plants to rot with black pod disease.
Amber Sawyer, an analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “Climate change means hotter temperatures and more erratic rainfall. This year, those changes are interacting with the natural climate phenomenon El Niño, which also has a warming effect.
“The result is highly unstable growing conditions for many commodities globally, including cocoa and sugar.
“This is only set to worsen as emissions continue to drive ever more extreme climate change, which has the potential to put the availability and affordability of chocolate in jeopardy.”
Roses are also under threat as nearly 60 per cent of all exported roses come from five countries in the global south which face growing dangers from extreme weather.
On average, rose plants in the UK now start to flower about a month earlier than would have been seen as recently as the mid-1980s because of increased average temperatures across January to April.
Osai Ojigho, director of policy and public campaigns at Christian Aid, said: “Roses are a special part of the Valentine’s Day tradition but with many of them grown in parts of the world vulnerable to climate change, their future is far from rosy.
“These blooms bring joy, and are a vital income for growers in the global south, yet these livelihoods are endangered by the rising carbon emissions and the seemingly endless pursuit of fossil fuels from rich nations like the UK.
“We need to see far more urgent action from governments to invest in renewables and also commit the needed climate finance to help farmers adapt to a climate crisis they did almost nothing to cause.”
