Ask the Alchemist #333
Well, DUCK! This isn’t going to be a bright cheery post full of rainbows and unicorns. More like the stark light of an oncoming train shining in your eyes and unicorn farts instead. I’ve never been one to sugar coat stuff. I tend to just put it out there and I’m going to do the same thing here as well as I can.
What that means I’m going to both announce the new Peru Maranon that just landed and not shy away from the fact that it is duckall expensive.....and today’s Ask the Alchemist will attempt to explain some of the reasons.
Before that, the hook. Is it still a hook if I tell you it is a hook? Who knows? Probably not. But what the duck, I’m not really any good at marketing. I’m good at being myself. The hook is to both tell you the Peru Marañón is both absolutely fantastic tasting, better than the earlier lot this year, and also in limited supply. See, I tell you how good it is, and encourage you to go BUY IT NOW because it is going to go fast.
In most marketing that sh!t is just hype. Here it just happens to be true. And to make matters even more complicated, it is even more expensive which is often what happens when something is in short supply just so people can make more of a profit. Here though, all that is completely disconnected.
It is in short supply, not because it is expensive nor because it is great.
It is expensive, not because it is great nor because it is in short supply
It is great, not because it is expensive.
It is in short supply because it is from a small supplier.
It is expensive because the cocoa market has gone crazy (>300% up from last year but more about that later) and the smaller a lot, the less you can distribute overhead costs.
It is great because....I’m not sure. Weather? Good crop? Luck? Rainbows and unicorns? It is just great.
How great?
The chocolate aroma is softly bright with buttery, nutty highlights. The chocolate is very sweet and reminiscent of caramel or creme' brulee. There is only the barest hint of astringency and just a touch more bitterness that balances so well with the sweetness.
Pretty great. Check out the whole review yourself.
Peru Marañón 2024 - Direct Trade Lot #2
Peru Marañón 2024 Direct Trade Lot #2
Peru Marañón 2024 Direct Trade - Lot #2 Spider Chart
Ok, time to get to the question that birthed today’s ducking ramblings.
Why is cocoa butter so expensive all of a sudden? Can I use anything else less expensive? Would coconut oil work?
I wrote about this back in Ask the Alchemist #327.
Ghana on fire
Commodity cocoa going through the roof
Deficits in the cocoa supply
As a review the price of commodity cocoa for the last couple decades has been around the $2000/MT give or take some. In the last 6-9 months it has rocketed up to an all time high of just over $12,300/MT in April. It has been volatile since thin bouncing from $8,000 to $11,000.
In short, that is why cocoa butter has become so expensive. At best you get about one third of the weight of cocoa butter from cocoa beans meaning butter is naturally going to be at least 3 times more expensive as cocoa. Where cocoa butter used to be somewhere around $10,000/MT it went as high as $40,000/MT after the cost of shipping and processing are factored in. And unfortunately for us, there is a lag time so even though prices have come down some, the cocoa that was purchased at those higher prices carried their costs forward. Prices are slowly coming down but I’m pretty much convinced we are never going to see prices where they were a year ago.
That ties in directly to why the Maranon I just announced is nearly $20/lb Retail. The specialty cocoa market nearly by definition is more expensive than the commodity cocoa market that is riding 3-4 times higher than a year ago. When the market was $2000/MT, the specialty market ranged more in the area of $6000 - $8000 /MT and sometimes as high as $10K/MT. Now that the commodity market is where the specialty market was, the specialty market has kind of floundered around as farmers (rightfully) demand at least market price and often more since it becomes a case of classic supply and demand. That means on a practical note, some specialty cocoa is over $14K/MT before ever leaving origin.
Couple that with ocean rates going up again (sorry, I don’t know why, just that it is) from $2000/container to $6-8K/container, you start to see very quickly why the specialty cocoa prices are up. And I feel I need to point out they are only up 100% and not 400%. That’s something? Right? I’m not sure, but it is what it is.
So what can you do about it?
This is kind of where I go a mix of philosophical and practical.
If you are a home chocolate maker about the only thing you can do is accept it after deciding how much joy chocolate making brings to your life. I know a craft ale and burger used to cost me about $12. Last Friday it cost me $22. Those things bring joy to my life, I can afford them, I want to support the people behind them and so I’m paying that price and not complaining.
I think that is all I have to say about. You can see how and/or if it applies to you.
On this side, I’ve tried to make the per purchase price a little easier, at least as far as cocoa butter goes. It is why we have started offering it in 4 oz and 8 oz quantities. Sure, the cost per lb is still $32/lb but your outlay is only $8 or so. I hope that helps a little.
If you are a craft chocolate maker I DEEPLY urge you to crunch some numbers and see how much the cost of both your beans and butter are really affecting your prices and adjust accordingly. Let’s do a little back of the envelope math.
4 years ago you were buying beans for $4-6/lb and selling chocolate for $10-12 for a 2-3 oz bar or .
Averaging that out, it means chocolate was selling for about $70/lb (16 oz / 2.5 oz = 6.4 x $11/lb = 70) and costing $5/lb in raw materials. Again, back of the envelope (meaning crude) calculations, that means that everything that was not raw materials was $65/lb.
What that means is that if your beans are now double at $10/lb (and they are not, that is just and example) you should NOT be charging double or $22 for a 2.5 oz bar. You should be seeing that your new sale price should be about $65 + $10 = $75/lb or 75 / 6.4 = $11.71 per bar.
And before anyone starts pounding away saying I’ve not included all the other price increases, you are right. I’m ONLY saying prices increases are NOT linear nor simple but our brains tend to go there first.
That all said, it also is more complicated. There is a reason I’m not currently selling bulk cocoa butter. I’m playing catch up and don’t have laying around the cash to buy butter at 4 times it’s previous cost. And I get that many of you might be doing the same. Normally you buy a pallet of beans but a pallet is just too large of an outlay and when you buy just one or two bags, the cost of shipping is suddenly more per pound.
All this is by way of saying I know it isn’t simple and is a balancing act and also that I don’t have a simple solution. What I’ve done on this side is made our prices as linear as possible for wholesale and I’ve stopped rewarding those people that have money and can afford more beans. Instead I’m just trying to make it as transparent as possible and not penalize those without a lot of cash.
Before I move onto other things you should or shouldn’t do, I want to let folks know I’ve started a new group buy for the aforementioned cocoa butter. In all transparency I’m doing it to raise the cash to make the minimum purchase and pass those savings onto you.
Natural Cocoa Butter
Can I use anything else less expensive? Would coconut oil work?
The short answer is nothing else works like cocoa butter.
My very biased opinion is that those questions are how we got to crappy industrial chocolate and I don’t think we should go down that road.
Mix the cheapest beans you can find because cocoa is more expensive, roasted in a way to make it as palatable as possible and add in other less expensive ingredients to stretch it out and you are sounding way too much like bulk crap chocolate.
With that out of the way, this is a time to reconsider your recipes. From the Purity Duck standpoint, two ingredient chocolate annoys me. From the lens of what is happening here, you really don’t need to use cocoa butter until your chocolate gets below about 65% and if you dry your ingredients to remove all moisture, you can often push that down to 60% chocolate. And for milk chocolate, you can certainly play with clarified butter in lieu of all cocoa butter since milk fat is already in the recipe in the milk powder.
Coconut will not work really as it affects tempering a LOT. I find it causes more trouble than it solves.
There you go. I leave you to think about why you are making chocolate and how much these new prices are really affecting your prices or hobby. At the end of the day, chocolate making like most hobbies and craft items is more about the experience and less about the cost. Sure, I can make a killer smash burger at home and pair it with an ale I brewed for less than $22 but I’m going to still go support my local brew pub. Maybe not as often, but I’m still going to do it as it brings me and others joy.
Go find your joy.
