Spencer’s Predictions for 2025

Last week I took stock of a turbulent 2024. This week I’m going to stick my neck out and make a few predictions for 2025. To give myself a little bit of “wiggle room”, I’ve assigned a probability to each of these: H- High, M – Medium and L – Low. I’ll even mark myself periodically during the year.

I’m also planning out emails and topics for the blog, and Sunday emails, for the upcoming months. If you’ve any topics you’d like to discuss, please let me know. I’ve listed a few that have already been made below.

So here we go, my predictions for 2025 in chocolate:

1. Commodity cocoa prices, and indeed all cocoa prices will continue to rise (M/H) Having been at around $2,200 per tonne for over a decade, last year commodity cocoa prices rose to over $10,000. I suspect, and fear, that they could even hit $15,000 (M/L) – and I’ve even a few meals and hot chocolate bets on this!
2. In mass confectionery, this means more “shrinkflation”, more sugar, more filling agents, more bulking agents etc. – and a chance for “Big Chocolate” to raise prices again. Expect to see your supermarket “finest” and all the well known brands go above the £2, and maybe even £3 bars (H)
3. Alternative chocolate and cocoa cutter replacements become even more prevalent (H) – and most of these continue to be unappetising (H).  We’ve tasted LOADS of these; and very, very few pass muster – do come on our Taste and Flavour MasterClass to try one that Cargill is now rolling out.
4. More nonsensical claims will be written about how Artificial Intelligence is going to revolutionise flavour in food overall, and in particular create amazing “chocolate that isn’t chocolate” (H – for more on this, please see here).
5. Sadly, cocoa farmers, especially in West Africa, will NOT see much of the upside from prices rises (H we’ll write more about this) .. and it will also create complications for farmers seeking relationships with craft chocolate makers (again, we’ll write more about this too)
6. In particular, cocoa butter prices will rise even higher (H) – and this means white craft chocolate, and even some 100% bars become even harder to source (M/H)
7. Big Chocolate will (finally) start to invest again in their own farms in South America (H), Asia (M) and Africa (L)
8. Fibre becomes a major nutritional trend (M) and all sorts of nonsense is written about chocolate and fibre (for details on why craft chocolate, but not commodity chocolate does contain “bio-available” fibre, see the blog)
9. Sugar becomes more and more of an issue (H), and this finally catches up with Tony’s claims to be child/slave labour free (sadly L)
10. Vegan chocolate will continue the annual “Veganuary” boom and bust (H); for more on the weird way that supermarket dark chocolate isn’t vegan, see here
11. Drinking chocolate will continue to grow in popularity (M/H), and nano foaming will become a new buzzword (L .. but it should, and will write more about this)
12. More and more makers will move beyond the bar launching craft chocolate thins, rounds, neapolitans, etc. (L, but we’d love to encourage more of this!)

Plus we’ll be doing more talks at Fidelio, in our office and with partners (huge thanks to Sara at Square Mile for last week).

Thanks as ever for your support – and do write in with requests, comments, predictions, etc.

Spencer

P.s. Also thanks for all your requests and suggestions for more email subjects and Chocopedia posts. I’m going to open this up to more suggestions in the comments – and here is a first pass list of planned emails:

• Why dark chocolate may actually be good for your teeth
• Why mint and chocolate work so well together (hint: mintiness, like spiciness and astringency, is not about taste or flavour but is a trigeminal sensation)
• The difference between craving and savouring, and how understanding this can help you avoid Big Food abuse of your childhood memories, instinctive likes and dislikes, tastes, etc.
• A deep dive on the wonderful world of polyphenols in chocolate
  An exploration of bubbles, froth and texture in bars, drinks and cooking with chocolate
• Automated and hand pollination of cocoa
• How to store (and age) your craft chocolate, including in hot countries (we’ve written about this before, and supply all subscribers with special pouches, but we keep getting asked about this)
• The under-reported importance of chocolate for the armed forces in UK, US and international history
• Updates on earlier posts on Emulsifiers, Heavy Metals, Fairtrade, Aphrodisiacs, hearth health, etc.