Chocolate lovers listen up, you may be paying more to satisfy your chocolate addiction.
Walk inside Amarah's Chocolate Company in Williston, Vermont and there's an aroma any chocoholic will recognize.
It's the busiest time of year for owner of Amarah's Chocolate Company, Angela Emerson. Only for Easter season does she have to customize a foot tall 6 pound bunny.
"It's a little crazy. Tis the season," Emerson said.
One thing that chocolate stores aren't celebrating this time of the year is the rising price of the necessary ingredients, including the price of wheat, which rose about 70%.
"As far as wheat goes that goes in a lot of the fillings that we use," Emerson said.
On top of that milk and butter prices are also increasing, as is the most important ingredient to any chocolatier, the coco bean. The majority of coco beans come from the Ivory coast, where political unrest is causing the price to spike.
"80% of the world's supply comes from the Ivory Coast," Emerson said.
Emerson says prices at her store haven't gone up but she has seen less profit. She says about 7% less per sale.
When asked if prices will eventually have to increase, she says the future of chocolate prices remains uncertain.
"I don't think we've seen the ceiling yet, I think what's going to happen is we're going to see an even higher price of chocolate even later on," Emerson said.
But for now Emerson says one good thing is at least as prices go up so have her number of sales.
"It's still been good, it's been really good," Emerson said.
Please Read Comment User Agreement
