Fall in cocoa butter prices eases threat to chocolate consumption

Stockholm

AAK AB, the 143-year-old Swedish supplier of fats to the chocolate industry, has said that the recent decline in cocoa butter prices could protect chocolate demand after soaring costs started posing a threat to consumption.

"It's good when cocoa butter prices are high, but there's a limit to how high we'd like to see prices go," AAK CEO Arne Frank said in an interview at the company's headquarters in Malmoe in southern Sweden. "The way we see it, there is a limit when volumes may be hit." Cocoa butter prices have dropped 22 per cent in the past two months, after more than tripling between the middle of 2012 and the end of 2013. Cocoa prices have also declined recently, though they remain at historically high levels, as chocolate demand outstrips supply. The International Cocoa Organization has forecast supply deficits in the coming year.