Pennsylvania chocolatier explains why your chocolate bunnies might be pricier this Easter
A chocolatier in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said environmental factors are leading to higher chocolate prices, which means beloved Easter candies and treats might be pricier this year.
"Some of them are solid and some of them are hollow," Kimberly Pietrak, owner of Skips Candy Corner in Peddler's Village, said."We started going to more hollow recently, only because of the cost of chocolate."
Pietrak said that the chocolatier produces thousands of chocolate rabbits, carrots, eggs and dark chocolate–covered pretzels every year — the perfect ingredients for Easter baskets.
Many chocolatiers are wrapping up their busy season, scrambling to deliver perfectly molded chocolates. But Pietrak said it's become challenging over the past year.
"If you read the ingredients and you don't see cocoa butter, it's not real chocolate," Pietrak warned customers.
She said many chocolate makers have been forced to cut corners due to the surge in cocoa.
Al Bayard started working in the family business about three years ago, just as chocolate prices were rising.
"We went from 19 cents an ounce to 40 cents an ounce," he said.
But why the price change? Bayard said that adverse weather conditions and dying crops in West Africa, the world's largest cocoa-producing region, are creating a global shortage.
"We try not to hurt our customers, but we can't keep taking the hits," Bayard said.
Pietrak said when her father, Skip, a retired firefighter, started the business in 1993, he would have never imagined a day when buying chocolate would become a luxury.
"My father had a passion for chocolate," Pietrak said. "Years ago, my father would mold [chocolate] with the metal molds."
They've been forced to use plastic molds to lessen imperfections and waste. As third-generation chocolatiers, Pietrak said the sweetest moments are still getting those special deliveries out in time for Easter.
"I'm extremely grateful and extremely happy at what I do," Pietrak said, "and I owe it to him and my mother."
