Mumbi Gitau, Ilena Peng and Dayanne Sousa | (TNS) Bloomberg News

As the Easter holidays approach, higher cocoa prices mean shoppers are paying far more for their chocolate eggs and bunnies. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Higher prices in stores now reflect increases in cocoa in 2023. Since then, the rally has gone into overdrive, and cocoa has more than doubled in price already this year, making it the world’s hottest commodity.

In just the last three weeks, wholesale beans in New York have jumped more than 47%, exceeding $8,900 a ton — a level that once seemed unthinkable.

That means even higher prices for households as those moves feed through to retailers. But already, U.K. shoppers are paying more for chocolate, and sometimes getting less for their money, what’s known as “shrinkflation.” In Brazil, where Easter is a major celebration, chocolate egg prices recently became an internet meme when some stores advertised that people could buy them with loans and payment installments.

The record surge is being driven by disappointing harvests in cocoa’s West Africa heavyweights, Ivory Coast and Ghana, which account for most of the world’s production.

The industry is largely made up of smallholder farmers who have faced a legacy of poor returns, making it harder to invest in their plots or withstand extreme weather events.

“The true cost of chocolate has not been seen by consumers for a long time,” said Emily Stone, founder of specialty cocoa dealer Uncommon Cacao. “Persistent low prices to producers and climate change are driving the market up to these heights. Now, that comes as a shock to some, but this was predictable.”

The price increase is also a reminder that while headline inflation rates are easing around the world, surges in individual commodities can still put the squeeze on consumers. Chocolate may be seen as more a luxury than a necessity, but brands like Kit Kat and Snickers are often regular parts of weekly shopping baskets.

Consumers may even be more sensitive to such price increases after what they’ve been through in recent years. Memories of the post-pandemic inflation spike — and the damage it did to household finances – are still very fresh.

“It’s really expensive,” school counselor Isabel Cristina Brandão said as she picked up three small private label eggs from a candy store in Sao Paulo. She remembers her shopping cart used to be filled a few years ago. “Now we pay more, for a lot less.”

In the U.S., the average unit price of chocolate eggs is up 12% over the past year, data from researcher NIQ shows. The cost of some popular Easter eggs in the UK has soared by up to 50%, according to consumer group Which?

Those changes account for only a small portion of cocoa’s colossal rally as key ingredients used to make Easter treats were likely purchased in the fourth quarter of 2023 or earlier.

Confectionery is among the categories where US consumers are noticing shrinkflation the most, according to a YouGov survey this month. Households are already cutting back on treats; 44% say they buy chocolate or candy less often because of inflation, according to the U.S. National Confectioners Association.

And there’s no relief in sight given what looks like an unstoppable rally, with production shortages expected to persist into the next season. More pain lies ahead when cocoa booked at current sky-high prices will be used for upcoming holidays like Halloween and Christmas.

Earlier this month, Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli said it would have to raise prices this year and next because of the jump in raw material costs.

While some companies may have cheap inventories to cover production for the next six months, they will opt for gradual price hikes rather than shock customers with steep increases, said Judy Ganes, president of J Ganes Consulting.

“If you push through a price increase now, then you can sustain operations and not have to make a short jump,” she said.

Other top chocolate manufacturers have also raised prices and are leaving the door open for more. Mondelez International Inc. Chief Financial Officer Luca Zaramella in February signaled increases are likely, while Hershey Co. Chief Executive Officer Michele Buck said the company remains “committed to pricing to cover inflation.”

Nestle SA said while it’s absorbed some higher costs through efficiencies, it may need to make “responsible adjustments to pricing in the future given the persistently high cocoa prices.”

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(With assistance from Paula Doenecke and Thomas Hall.)

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©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Prosecutors recently charged a St. Paul man with misdemeanors after his five dogs escaped his yard and attacked a 7-year-old girl.

The dogs bit pieces of her nose, ear and thigh off, a sibling of the girl wrote on a fundraising page.

A neighbor’s doorbell camera captured the incident in Frogtown and another witness identified the dogs’ owner as a 37-year-old man who lives nearby, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday.

The man told police he let his dogs out on Feb. 8 and didn’t realize the gate was open.

The girl was walking home from her school bus stop with a parent when the dogs suddenly attacked her in the 600 block of Van Buren Avenue. The child’s parent struck the dogs to try to get them off her.

The attack stopped when a person — later identified as the dogs’ owner — driving a vehicle honked its horn, causing the dog to run away. The dogs’ owner was seen exiting his vehicle briefly before reentering and driving in the direction of the dogs.

Police have said the dogs’ owner allowed St. Paul Animal Control to take the dogs the next day. He was only able to provide proof of rabies vaccine for two of the dogs, did not have a license for any of dogs, and hadn’t applied for a permit allowing him to own more than three dogs, the complaint said.

Animal Control declared the dogs dangerous on Feb. 13, after which the owner surrendered them to Animal Control and they were euthanized.

The fundraiser for the girl is to ensure she gets access to a plastic surgeon “to make sure that she has no more scarring than is possible since she has injuries to her face,” according to a GoFundMe started by her sibling.

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By LAURA UNGAR and MATTHEW PERRONE (Associated Press)

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a case Tuesday that could impact how women get access to mifepristone, one of the two pills used in the most common type of abortion in the nation.

The central dispute in the case is whether the Food and Drug Administration overlooked serious safety problems when it made mifepristone easier to obtain, including through mail-order pharmacies.

Legal briefs filed with the court describe the pill’s safety in vastly different terms: Medical professionals call it “among the safest medications” ever approved by the FDA, while the Christian conservative group suing the agency attributes “tens of thousands” of “emergency complications” to the drug.

Earlier this year, a medical journal retracted two studies that claimed to show the harms of mifepristone. The studies were cited in the pivotal Texas court ruling that brought the matter before the Supreme Court. The publisher cited conflicts of interest by the authors and flaws in their research, although the studies’ lead author called the retractions a baseless attack.

Here’s what to know about the safety of mifepristone, which is typically used with misoprostol in a medication abortion.

What safety limits has the FDA imposed since 2000?

The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies.

There are rare occasions when mifepristone can cause dangerous, excessive bleeding that requires emergency care. Because of that, the FDA imposed strict safety limits on who could prescribe and distribute it — only specially certified physicians and only as part of three mandatory in-person appointments with the patient getting the drug.

The doctors also had to be capable of performing emergency surgery to stop excess bleeding and an abortion procedure if the drug didn’t end the pregnancy.

Over the years, the FDA reaffirmed mifepristone’s safety and repeatedly eased restrictions, culminating in a 2021 decision doing away with any in-person requirements and allowing the pill to be sent through the mail.

How often are there serious problems?

Abortion opponents say the more lax restrictions resulted in many more “emergency complications.” But that argument lumps together women experiencing a range of issues with mifepristone — from the drug not working to people who may simply have questions or concerns but don’t require medical care.

OB-GYNs say a tiny fraction of patients suffer “major” or “serious” adverse events after taking mifepristone.

A legal brief by a group of medical organizations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says: “When used in medication abortion, major adverse events — significant infection, excessive blood loss, or hospitalization — occur in less than 0.32% of patients, according to a highly regarded study with more than 50,000 patients.”

The definition that scientists generally use for serious adverse events includes blood transfusions, major surgery, hospital admissions and death, said Ushma Upadhyay, one of the authors of that 2015 study. She added: “The hospital admission is a catch-all for the very serious but more rare events such as major infection.”

The prescribing information included in the packaging for mifepristone tablets lists slightly different statistics for what it calls “serious adverse reactions.” It cites ranges for how frequently various complications occur: 0.03% to 0.5% for transfusion; 0.2% for sepsis and 0.04% to 0.6% for hospitalization related to medication abortions. The ranges reflect findings across various relevant studies, experts said.

Why do patients go to the emergency room?

Mifepristone’s labeling also lists a complication that most medical groups don’t consider a serious or major adverse event: ER visits, which ranged from 2.9% to 4.6%. The current FDA label lists going to the ER as an option if patients experience prolonged heavy bleeding, severe abdominal pain or a sustained fever.

But ER visits don’t always reflect big problems, doctors told The Associated Press.

Some people may go there after a medication abortion because they want to be checked out or have questions but don’t have a doctor, said Upadhyay, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Others, she said, “don’t want to go to their primary care provider about their abortion” because of stigma.

A study she co-authored in 2018 found that slightly more than half of patients who visited the ER because of abortions received only observational care. Some, Upadhyay said, “don’t receive any treatment.”

How effective is the pill?

Mifepristone results in a completed abortion 97.4% of the time, according to U.S. studies cited in the FDA label.

But in 2.6% of cases, a surgical intervention is needed. And 0.7% of the time, the pregnancy continues.

That’s compared to a procedural abortion in a clinic, where the chance of the procedure failing to end a pregnancy “is extremely, extremely low,” probably less than 0.1%, said Dr. Pratima Gupta, a board member for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“Any time a procedural abortion is done, the clinicians ensure that it was a complete abortion” by examining the tissue that is removed or performing an ultrasound during or after the procedure, she said.

Gupta, who has done abortion procedures for more than 20 years, said there are “very few complications from abortion — any kind of abortion, medication or procedural abortion.” A recent study suggests that’s just as true for medication abortions that happen in a clinic, a doctor’s office or at home with the help of telehealth.

How does mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness compare to other drugs?

The FDA makes drug approval decisions on a case-by-case basis, weighing effectiveness, safety and other factors.

No drug is 100% effective, and many common medications don’t work for a significant portion of patients.

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Antidepressants typically help between 40% and 60% of people with depression. New antibiotics approved by the FDA often resolve about 70% of infections.

Since 2000, roughly 6 million patients have taken mifepristone, according to the FDA. A 2021 review of agency records looking for deaths that were likely related to the drug identified 13, or .00027% of patients.

Medical organizations supporting mifepristone’s availability say the drug’s safety — given the rate of deaths — compares to “ibuprofen, which more than 30 million Americans take in any given day.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.