RoundTalk

Cocoa and coffee prices swing wildly: can we trust a stable chocolate bar?

English · C2 worksheet Based on the RoundTalk episode of

Free for classroom use. Students listen to the first 75 seconds and read the beginning of the debate, then work on the tasks. The answer key is on the last page. The panelists are fictional characters with AI voices.

Episode page
1 · Listen (first 75 seconds)

2 · Read

Host

Welcome to RoundTalk. Cocoa's crashed seventy percent, yet chocolate bars cost more and shrink faster. Where's the money going? Marcus, commodity trader; Elena, food journalist; David, consultant to Big Chocolate. Over to you.

Host

Right, Marcus.

Marcus Webb

Hershey isn't paying spot. They're paying contracts struck in 2024 and 2025, when futures sat near twelve and a half thousand. That's the lag. Eighteen months, easily. Let's be honest here — the relief arrives late, and it arrives quietly.

Host

Elena, you've walked through those Ivorian cooperatives. Are the farmers seeing any of that contract-price relief at all?

Elena Castillo

Relief arrives late, sure. But the cut arrived overnight. Ivory Coast slashed the farmgate to 1,200 CFA — fifty-seven percent, one announcement, 1.1 million farmers. No eighteen-month lag downward. The farmer gets squeezed instantly.

Host

David, you've sat across the table from Hershey's procurement team. When does a contract actually reset, and what fills the gap between farmgate collapse and shelf price?

David Park

Contracts don't reset, they roll — in tranches, quarter by quarter. So a 2024 hedge still sits in next year's cost. And cocoa's maybe a tenth of that bar. The rest? Freight, labour, packaging. It's more complicated than it looks.

Elena Castillo

A tenth of the bar, and the whole of their lives.

Marcus Webb

No, no, wait — a tenth? That's the alibi the whole industry hides behind. When cocoa tripled, nobody said "it's only a tenth." They repriced the entire bar. The numbers don't lie: input up, price up; input down, price up. Funny, that.

David Park

Fair hit. They didn't say it then. But here's the thing — when cocoa tripled, it stopped being a tenth. At twelve thousand a ton it was a third of the bar. That's why the pass-through was brutal, and why it sticks.

Host

Marcus, go ahead.

Marcus Webb

A third of the bar at twelve and a half thousand — fine. Then at $5,592 today it's back down to a seventh. Your own arithmetic says give back two-thirds of that hike. Instead we get a $29 bag of Reese's Pieces and smaller wrappers. That's the real story.

Key vocabulary

  • farmgate — Price paid to farmers at point of harvest sale
  • shortfall — Deficit or amount lacking from required total
  • Ivorian — Relating to Ivory Coast or its people
  • COCOBOD — Ivory Coast's cocoa regulatory and marketing board

Comprehension questions

  1. Why does Marcus Webb argue that chocolate price relief from lower cocoa costs arrives late?
  2. What does Elena Castillo claim is asymmetrical in how cocoa price changes reach farmers versus consumers?
  3. How does David Park explain why chocolate manufacturers justified maintaining high prices when cocoa costs fell significantly?
  4. According to David Park, what complicates the price pass-through from cocoa costs to shelf prices?

True or false?

  1. Marcus Webb claims that when cocoa cost $5,592 per ton, it represented about a seventh of the chocolate bar's total cost. T / F
  2. Elena Castillo reports that Ivory Coast reduced the farmgate price to 1,200 CFA through a gradual, phased reduction over eighteen months. T / F
  3. David Park states that contracts with chocolate manufacturers reset every quarter to reflect current market prices. T / F
  4. When cocoa prices reached twelve thousand a ton, it accounted for approximately a third of the chocolate bar's cost, according to David Park. T / F

Discuss in pairs

  1. Should chocolate manufacturers be legally required to pass through commodity price reductions to consumers at the same speed they raise prices when inputs increase, or is the current system acceptable?
  2. Who bears the greatest unfair burden in this price system—farmers facing instant cuts, consumers paying high prices for shrinking products, or is there a better way to distribute these risks?
  3. What would be a fair or practical way for manufacturers to handle the gap between rapidly falling farmgate prices and slowly rolling contract costs without simply absorbing profits or raising shelf prices?

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Answer key

Comprehension
  1. Because chocolate manufacturers pay on contracts struck in 2024 and 2025 when futures were much higher, creating an eighteen-month lag before the lower prices are reflected in their costs.
  2. Farmers face an immediate cut to farmgate prices with no lag, whereas consumers experience a delayed benefit from falling commodity costs on store shelves.
  3. He argues that cocoa represents only a small portion of the bar's cost, with freight, labour, and packaging making up the rest, so the overall reduction should be modest.
  4. Contracts roll in tranches across quarters, so a 2024 hedge remains embedded in future costs, and cocoa's proportion of total bar cost fluctuates with market prices.
True or false
  1. True
  2. False
  3. False
  4. True

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