Where Have All the Cocoa Powders Gone?
No Hershey’s, Ghirardelli, or Nestlé? Climate, Disease, and Low Pay Are Killing Our Cocoa. What's next?
IT’S LIKE LIVING IN A TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE. Or, more accurately, the movie “Groundhog Day.” All three times I planned to make Hershey’s chocolate cake this summer, I wound up staring at the cocoa powder section—or what was the cocoa section—of the supermarket, head cocking from side to side, looking to all the world like a mentally challenged cocker spaniel.
Where there were supposed rows and rows of those comforting brown cartons was a space. A gaping hole like a giant missing tooth. No boxes of Hershey’s cocoa. Regular or Special Dark (Dutch processed).
“Frigging asswipes,” I said to myself a little too loudly, only to catch the haughty disapproval of some Stepford Wife in a pink sweater set. I figured that, once again, the crack team at the Big Y was late in restocking.
Rather than ask for it and tolerate an even more withering look from the stock human (I was schooled by a teenager that “stock boy” and even “stock man” were asumptive and showed my “white male boomer privilege”), I grabbed a bag of Ghirardelli cocoa and cursed my way to the parking lot.
The next time I was making the cake, and once again out of cocoa, I headed back to the Big Y. And yet again, no Hershey’s.
Lest you think I am brand f*cker, I reach for the Big H because it feels like cheating to make the Hershey’s chocolate cake, one of the greatest cakes of all time, with another cocoa. And it feels downright dirty to make the cake with some super-luxe cocoa made by a cadre of virgins by the light of a Blood Moon and that sports a higher price tag than cocaine.
Pissed, I reached for the Ghirardelli again. Only this time, there was none. The Black Hole of Big Y was double its previous size. “Are you shitting me?” I shouted.
I turned and marched toward the back of the store, honing my words so they’d be as cutting as possible: "Where the hell is the cocoa powder?” I imagine pointing my finger at that stock human who’s so woke he’s practically insomniacal. “And before you give me some lame-ass excuse…DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” But I stopped short at the Red-Dot Sale bin. Channeling Lea Michele always backfires spectacularly, usually ending with The One dragging me out of some store or another, sometimes by my belt loops.
Thwarted, I trundled back up the aisle, grabbed the nearest cocoa powder I could find (Nestlé Toll House), and slunk through the self-checkout.
But today, TODAY, I had high hopes. Tomorrow I’m making my chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for our friend Fred Miller for his birthday. It’s his favorite cake, and I wasn’t about to disappoint.
Being a preternatural Negative Nancy, I shrugged off my pessimism by thinking lovely, happy thoughts—Pink unicorns! Cotton candy! A world without sports!—and walked yet again in the Big Y. By now, anyone else would've thought to visit a different store. But not me! When in a crisis, double down on the behavior that got you there.
This time, nearly the entire top shelf was empty. All that remained were a few containers of, I can barely make myself say it, store-brand cocoa.
And before you come for my jugular, I know that name-brand manufacturers often make store-brand products. But these cocoa containers were so hideous, so depressing—on the front was a picture of a grandmother and grandchild baking that could double as a stock photo in a brochure for an assisted-living facility—that I simply couldn’t.
Instead, I whipped out my phone and gave ChatGPT, whom I call HAL, a piece of my mind. And like his “2001: A Space Odyssey” namesake, he was having none of it.
“HAL, what the hell is going on with cocoa powder? I can’t find it anywhere, for crissake?”
“Yo, you hold your horses, young man.” (I’ve programmed him with plenty of snark, shade, and the occasional perfectly laded clapback. Who wants a dull AI?)
He went on to say that there has been a steady drop in cocoa production over the past several years, especially in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which supply about 70% of the world’s cocoa.
“Damn, HAL, that’s dark.”
“It gets even darker, David, and I don’t mean the Dutch-processed kind.”
He pulled up all these stats about crop failures and extreme weather that have crippled production. To add to that, there’s been a virus affecting cocoa trees.
“Any good news?”
“I can’t say there is. Many farmers have abandoned cocoa due to punishing conditions and poor pay. They’re moving into more profitable fields like mining.”
“Out of the frying into the fire,” I typed. I watched his little black dot pulsate as he thought.
“To use a hackneyed culinary turn of phrase, yes.”
Ouch.
Apparently, it’s getting brutal. Two companies in Vermont, after having their cocoa supply dry up due to climate issues, had to pivot on the spot. Strafford Organic Creamery stopped making their popular chocolate milk and instead ramped up their maple milk production, because, well, it’s Vermont, and Vermont’s all about maple everything.
Some small companies folded, while others are trying to find alternatives. (Carob, anyone?) 🤢
Being the traumatized child of a dyed-in-the-wool narcissist who carries around his Louis Vuitton steamer truck of paranoia, I tend to see everything as happening to me. A traffic jam on I-95? Me. A sudden soaking thunderstorm? Yup, me! All those other folks caught in the same shower are just collateral damage in my acursed world.
But this, this is happening to all of us, regardless of our penchant for chocolate. For the first time, I really wish I were being targeted, that it were happening to me. I wish that there were some conspiracy against me, that someone held a vendetta against me—perhaps that annoying stock human—and he was personally thwarting my every attempt to make my beloved Hershey’s cake.
I’ve got to say it bothers me. Deeply. Sure, at 65, I have maybe a decade or so left of chocolate cakes. But what about the kids? And their kids? Could we be looking at a world where cocoa is once again the pleasure of kings, or at the very least of Tech-Billionaire Oligarchs? And is just the beginning? What’s next? Oranges? Pistachios? Beef? Water?
Am I making too much of this? Probably. But I never thought something like this could happen in my lifetime. And with each passing day, more things are happening that I never could have imagined, even in my twisted Negative Nancy brain.
I’ll admit my first thought when HAL told me what was happening was to stockpile. Tell Alexa to buy as much cocoa powder from Amazon as can fit into our Jeffery Dahmer chest freezer. That way, at least The One and I would be OK.
But no, I didn’t. And I won’t because that would make it all about me again. And chocolate cake belongs to us all.
Chow,
P.S. This is Fred with his chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, which he called “a national treasure.” I didn’t coach him, I swear! (8/22/25).
P.P.S. This just arrived in the mail from two friends who read this essay. With friends like Lyla and Diane, who needs Amazon!
P.P.P.S. Won’t you consider tapping the ♥️, restacking this post, and/or leaving a comment? It takes but a moment, but its impact is enormous! xx
This was hilarious. Thanks David. Keeping it real, I love it. But I'm actually super depressed about the global diminishing of cocoa. That is absolutely awful.
Great read,
I laughed and then I cried. A world without cocoa is too sad to consider.