Cocoa prices are soaring to record levels. What it means for consumers and why ‘the worst is still yet to come’
A farmers holds cocoa beans while he is drying them at a village in Sinfra, Ivory Coast, on April 29, 2023.
Luc Gnago | Reuters
Consumers could start to see the effect of surging cocoa prices as the world faces the worst supply deficit in decades, with farmers in West Africa struggling against bad weather, disease and failing trees.
Cocoa futures for May delivery surged to an all-time intraday high of $10,080 per metric ton Tuesday before ending the day down 0.3% to settle at $9,622. Cocoa has more than tripled in cost over the past year and is up 129% in 2024.
Hershey CEO Michele Buck told CNBC last month that the company has a hedging strategy to manage the price volatility. The National Confectioners Association told CNBC in an email that the industry is working with retailers to “manage down costs” and keep chocolate affordable for consumers.
Though the large chocolate companies were well-hedged last year and did not have to immediately pass on high prices to consumers, there is only so much the industry can do to absorb costs, said Paul Joules, a commodities analyst at Rabobank.
The world is facing the largest cocoa supply deficit in more than 60 years and consumers could start to see the effect at the end of this year or early 2025, Joules said. The International Cocoa Organization has forecast a supply deficit of 374,000 tons for the 2023-24 season, a 405% increase from a deficit of 74,000 tons in the previous season.
“The worst is still yet to come,” Joules said. Cocoa prices will likely remain elevated for some time because there are no easy fixes to the systemic issues facing the market, he said.
Cocoa in past 12 months
Consumers could face higher prices or “shrinkflation” in the form of smaller chocolate bars, Joules said. Companies might also adjust ingredients to use less cocoa in some products, he said. The worst sticker shock would come from dark chocolate, which has a very high cocoa content, the analyst said.
David Branch, sector manager at Wells Fargo’s Agri-Food Institute, said consumers could see higher prices as soon as Easter, which is on Sunday.
“Given that cocoa prices and other manufacturing costs have been rising steadily over the past year, it is likely consumers will see a price spike on chocolate candy this Easter,” Branch told clients in a research note this month.
Cocoa prices have been on a tear due to supply disruptions in the key producing nations of Ivory Coast and Ghana, Joules said. The two countries represent about 60% of global cocoa production.
Crops have been hit by black pod disease and swollen shoot virus and many trees are past their maximum yield potential because there has not been a major round of planting since the early 2000s, Joules said.
Heavy rains exacerbated the disease issues, Branch said, and the El Niño weather phenomenon has also led to drier conditions resulting in lower cocoa yields in previous years. Seasonal harmattan winds were more extreme this year, also affecting crop yields, Branch said.
Farmers in Ivory Coast are increasingly exiting cocoa production for more lucrative crops such as rubber, Joules said. The governments of Ghana and Ivory Coast set fixed prices for the farmers at the start of the season so they are not benefiting from the currently rally, the analyst said.
The recent runup is likely due to panic among some commercial buyers rather than market speculation, Joules said. Buyers see the magnitude of the supply deficit and are trying to secure the cocoa that is available, according to the analyst.
Speculators contributed to the early leg of the rally last year as they bet on higher prices by increasing their long positions, Joules said, but they have been exiting those positions this year to book profits.
The spike in prices has hit chocolate giant Hershey, which sees flat earnings for the year. Hershey stock is down about 22% over the past 12 months, while Nestle’s Switzerland-listed shares have shed about 13% during the same period.
Kempower just cut the ribbon on downtown Durham, North Carolina’s first public DC fast-charging station. The new charger is operated in partnership with National Car Charging.
The new station at 111 W. Chapel Hill Street has two plugs (CCS1 and CHAdeMO) and is near restaurants and shops. The Durham area has plenty of Level 2 chargers, but this is its first DC fast charger downtown. Until now, the closest fast charger was three miles away from downtown.
Kempower, a Finnish company with its US office and factory in Durham, doesn’t mention the number of kilowatts its DC fast charger can deliver. However, PlugShare reports that a Ford F-150 Lightning managed 171 kW yesterday.
I asked the City of Durham’s spokesperson why it’s taken this long to install a DC fast charger downtown, and they replied that the “downtown core in Durham is densely developed and there are not many locations for chargers that have the right conditions and available power infrastructure for commercially viable fast chargers.”
Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams said the charger represents another step forward for the city’s clean energy goals: “With this locally built EV fast charger in the heart of downtown, we’re not only reducing our community’s carbon footprint – we’re supporting local jobs, clean energy, and a more connected future for everyone who calls Durham home.”
As of 2025, North Carolina had more than 306 DC fast-charging stations and 1,385 ports.
Electrek’s Take
The City of Durham’s explanation of why it’s taken this long to get a fast charger downtown is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. It must be more of an infrastructure issue, or perhaps a matter of politics or funding, because density hasn’t stopped other cities from installing fast chargers in urban areas. Kempower provided 10 fast chargers at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan, in collaboration with Revel, in September 2024. At any rate, it’s progress for Durham worth celebrating.
Read more: PowerUp America is adding 100 new fast chargers in the Southeast
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Porsche unveiled its new Cayenne EV today, and it comes with an option for something we haven’t seen out of a factory-equipped car before: inductive charging.
Over the years, we’ve heard plenty of attempts by companies to trick consumers into thinking that it’s possible to make an electric car that doesn’t need to charge.
From Toyota’s dumb “self-charging hybrid” claim, to the new fad of “range extenders”/EREVs (aka plug-in hybrids with a bigger battery), to all manner of solar vehicles, people seem to think that convincing customers that they don’t need to plug in will get them to buy an EV (or, will help them greenwash their gas-guzzling hybrids).
And now the next entry into that group has arrived: the Porsche Cayenne electric, which can indeed be driven without ever plugging in, or gassing up, or even parking in the sun.
It does have to be parked somewhere specific though: over a pad in your garage. Because this car can be equipped to use inductive charging, right out of the factory.
Inductive charging uses magnetic fields to transfer electrical power, as opposed to conductive charging, which uses a plug. Inductive charging is how phone charging mats work, but in this case, it’s scaled up significantly in size and power.
We’ve seen a few inductive charging projects before, but they’ve always been aftermarket or experimental so far. Or, they’ve been targeted more at commercial or fleet buyers (buses, for example).
There is one mass-produced EV which is rumored to have inductive charging capability, the Tesla Cybertruck, and we know that Tesla is working on a charging pad, which will be helpful if autonomous vehicles ever roll out properly. But nothing has been announced as available yet.
Porsche, however, is ready to announce that the capability is coming to its upcoming Cayenne EV. Porsche has shown off its inductive tech before, but now we got to see it ourselves when we checked out the Cayenne in a studio preview.
Porsche says that its inductive charging system can push 11kW of power, which is plenty for overnight home charging (on the car’s 113kWh battery). It does this at 90% efficiency – not as much as the ~95% of conductive charging, but still quite good. It also requires an extra ~33lbs of coils and wiring onboard the car, which is a significant if not massive weight gain.
To activate the system, the charging pad makes contact with the car via wide-band wireless communication to determine location, then activates when you park in just the perfect spot. The car’s screen shows guide lines to help you find the way to where you need to be – or there’s always the tennis-ball-on-a-string trick if you want to go low tech.
When we tried it out in LA, once we got the system up and running (hot tip: don’t daisy chain two extension cords if you want your inductive charging pad to work), it quickly charged at 11kW, at least according to the in-car system.
The inductive charger includes a lot of safety features to ensure nothing weird happens. Even though it only uses magnetic fields, the mat includes sensors to detect any living or metal objects nearby, it will stop (yes, this includes your cat that likes to sleep under the car, and yes, Porsche gets asked this question often). We saw this happen once in the studio demo, but it quickly turned back on after deciding everything was okay.
The Cayenne will still have its regular conductive charging ports, capable of 11kW AC or 400kW DC charge. But for those who want to forgo the plug, at least at home, the mat is an available option.
That said – pricing and availability are still TBD. The system costs €7k in Europe, plus an electrician, but we don’t know what it will cost in the US yet.
So, there’s still a chance that someone else beats Porsche to the “first” moniker – possibly Tesla, given that it seems to be close to offering an inductive charging system. But there are a lot of hurdles to ensure that the system is reliable in every type of weather and real world situation, and lots of electrical codes to follow. So, it looks like the race is on.
Electrek’s Take
I was quite interested in talking to the engineers about this system, because I hadn’t actually experienced inductive charging in an EV before.
People have been talking about this for a long time, and I used to be excited about the concept of electrified roads where cars could just drive on them and get a charge and never have to plug in.
However, after conversations over the years and experience with how easy driving and charging an EV is, I came to think that inductive charging is mostly a gimmick, and that we will likely rely on conductive charging in the long term (and especially that in-highway charging is a boondoggle that’s never going to be a good option, especially when catenary/pantograph systems exist).
That said, there are still niches and benefits to be had. In a potential fully autonomous future, we’ll need to figure out autonomous charging, and inductive charging could be a good answer for that.
In addition, some drivers do have difficulty with cables. While the NACS cable is much easier to handle than the old CCS cable, an older driver or one with mobility issues might have a hard time plugging in a car. Inductive charging could be good for them.
Or, heck, maybe someone is just lazy. Or doesn’t like cords. And doesn’t mind spending money for these marginal improvements. We can imagine there are Porsche buyers who could fit that description.
I still think the take rate will be relatively low, but it will be interesting to see real world tests of this, how buyers get along with it, and what sort of problems they manage to solve. As much as I’m a skeptic of inductive charging’s usefulness and acknowledger of its limitations, it’s nice to see new things get tried sometimes.
What do you think about Porsche’s inductive charging system? Would you prefer it to conductive charging? How much would you pay to add this option to your EV? Let us know in the comments.
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The Inster, Hyundai’s most affordable EV, is Germany’s best-selling small electric car and top overall vehicle priced under €25,000.
The Hyundai Inster is Germany’s best-selling small EV
After launching the Inster in Europe in late 2024, Hyundai’s smallest and most affordable EV quickly became one of the most popular electric cars in the region.
According to JATO Dynamics, the Hyundai Inster was the 19th most popular EV across Europe in June, outselling the Dacia Spring, Hyundai Kona, and Toyota bZ4X.
In Germany, the heart of Europe, Hyundai’s most affordable EV is making an even bigger impression. Since this summer, the Hyundai Inster is Germany’s best-selling small EV so far in 2025 and just won the Golden Steering Wheel award for best car under €25,000 ($28,900) by AUTO BILD & BILD am SONNTAG.
Hyundai said the recognition is proof that its vehicles are resonating with buyers across Europe. The Korean automaker will continue expanding its EV lineup, from the small Inster to the three-row IONIQ 9.
The award comes after the Inster was crowned the 2025 World Electric Vehicle at the World Car Awards ceremony in the spring, held during the New York International Auto Show.
Hyundai’s electric city car starts at just €25,000 ($28,900) in Germany. Despite its small size, the Inster delivers up to 370 km (230 miles) WLTP driving range, fast charging (10% to 80%) in 30 minutes, and a surprisingly spacious and feature-rich interior.
The Inster features dual 10.3″ driver display and infotainment screens with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay as part of Hyundai’s digital cockpit.
By 2027, Hyundai plans to electrify all vehicles sold in Europe. The Inster and IONIQ 9 are now rolling out across the region, and Hyundai plans to build momentum with new EVs, including the IONIQ 3, which will go into production in Hungary in the first half of 2026.
In South Korea, Hyundai’s home market, the Inster is sold as the Casper Electric. The compact EV is sold in Japan, Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia.
Although those in the US won’t get to see the Inster or IONIQ 3, Hyundai still has one of the most affordable EVs you can get your hands on. With leases starting at just $189 per month, the Hyundai IONIQ 5 is still America’s best deal for an electric vehicle.
Interested in a test drive? We can help you get started. You can use our link to find available Hyundai IONIQ 5 models near you.
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