Cocoa Powder is not available at Coles, Aldi and is overpriced @ $8.35 at Woolworths.
Cadbury is also selling their rip off cocoa powder brand now as well of course to rip off customers because that's what they do! Available at Coles, Woolworths and Aldi for a rip of price of $7.50 for 250g.
I know there is cocoa powder famine and war happening in South Africa, surely there is some Aussie dude growing coco plants in Australia next to their hashishy plants somewhere?
Cocoa Powder overpriced and unavailable
There was something in the news a few days ago about a shortage…
Supply and demand dude.
+ tariffs (thank> Epstein client list deniers main participant) + climate change.
It isn't over priced, or unavailable.
It's just expensive and scarce, via the physics of the supply chain.
I had this exact same discussion with a buyer today. He asked me for Cocoa powder, and I used the employee device to try and find the non cadbury one.
Do you live in Melbourne by any chance, and are you an Asian?
😄😄😄
No. Not you. Dude who spoke to me was a parent with his wife. UNLESS ur mom just looks that young/you look that old.
Yeah, the price is coming back down, but cocoa in the supermarket was not purchased by the supplier yesterday.
Long story short mum asked for cocoa and couldn't find it. So went ahead on a mission and was like flabbergasted to say the least.
Try The Source wholefoods, you can just buy a little bit if it's still too expensive.
If you do a google search for something along the lines of "supply and demand pricing" it might help you to understand the current prices and lack of availability.
Simple/not simple/not complete explanation, just a couple of bricks in the wall
Ghana is by far the largest world producer. I don;t know why, but coffee seems to have severe geographic restrictions. A few years back they had a drought. The govt intervened to protect growers from exploitation in the way African Govts do this. so a black market developed, and available production has been reduced. You are welcome to expand on this
Chinese demand is having a significant effect.
About 5 years ago Barry Callebaut, the world's largest Cocoa company, bought into the Australian market, possibly to manufacture for export of quality assured product to China. We do have some small production in Northern Aust but it is small,
Interesting
I don;t know why, but coffee seems to have severe geographic restrictions.
Coffee or cocoa?
You will not find cheap cocoa prices anytime soon, Ghana supplies 80%+ of the worlds cocoa and their plantation was hit by a virus in 2024, this made cocoa prices went up by 5x and more.
The price of cocoa now is simply supply and demand.
There was also some news (prob fact-check this) about how the Ghana government overtook some of the farms for their Gov operations.
Also with Woolies and Coles branded cocoa powder, it's Dutch processed, IMO, dutch processed cocoa is far superior than normal cocoa and dutch processed is usually much more expensive than normal.
I had peripheral involvement in the chocolate market here, and there was already severe pressure in 2023, and I thought it was drought then, and ref coffee or beans - incomplete, both had "similar geographical constraints" not severe. So I apologise deeply for my sometimes errant grammar.
There was also some news (prob fact-check this) about how the Ghana government overtook some of the farms for their Gov operations.
About govt takeover. Already mentioned>
Yeah, got some good friends growing it just out of Darwin … good to have freebies :P