Latest / The SME Stream / Mike Renfree: Raglan Chocolate Head Maker on the impact of fluctuating cocoa bean prices

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Mike Renfree: Raglan Chocolate Head Maker on the impact of fluctuating cocoa bean prices · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Consistently rising prices of the cacal bean is making chocolate
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: tears look for cheaper alternatives. So a new study shows
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the price of cacao, the key ingredient and everyone's favorite
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: sweet treat, are now double what they were in twenty
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: twenty three. So the confectory giants like Hersy's and Cabri
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: are researching lab growing and genetically modified versions of the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: plant to make our chocolate. So Mike Renfrey as a
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: man who knows and loves his chocolate. He's the head
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: chocolate maker at Raglan Chocolate. He joins me, Now have Mike,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: what a hell of a job you've got.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: It's a pretty good job.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Actually, Bet, how expensive is cacao right now? Yeah?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely right. It is double what it was back
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. But that's really the you know,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: that's the commodity price. The real world for most of
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: us is different. It's only the big multinationals that are
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: really directly linked to that commodity price.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Year prices go up, but will they go down?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: They are down now, yep. I think we're talking about
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: two thousand and two dollars a kiload back in twenty
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: three and they've come back to about They went up
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: to say twelve dollars a kilo and back a year
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: twenty four to twenty five, and then back to about
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: five dollars a killer. I think now, so that's that's
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: that's what's happened. It's come back. But there's a real
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: lag in the system between you know, those buying and
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: buying the commodity and those actually putting product on the shelf.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And I think there's a bit of a belief that
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: those those big guys, you know, Montalez who's cap were
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: in that they will probably want to maintain that high
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: price in the retail for as long as they can.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: So maybe the maybe maybe the crisis is over, or
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: maybe the crisis is just normal market fluctuations. But here
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: they are they're talking about lab grown beans, Frankenstein beans
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: or something like that. What do you think about the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: idea of lab grown beans and we'll that Will the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: market accept them?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I don't actually think there's a need
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: for it. I think the supply situation is exaggerated. Where
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the blame is put. It's put you know, it's simple
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: supply chain supply and demand that demands grown and the
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: supply has been poor. The reality is that the supply
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: has been extremely affected by weather in the last several seasons,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: so that the great big warehouses of of beans in
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: West Africa, which is the greatest supply base, and the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: warehouses in Europe and so forth to supplying these big
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: multinationals have been depleted. So so they've been reluctant to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: buy those highest pride prices, but eventually they have to
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: buy to meet their market commitments, driving that price extremely high.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: We're a little isolated as a special chocolate maker. Our
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: prices were never anywhere as low as those commodity prices,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and now they're not as high as those commodity prices were.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So we're buffet to some degree, a little bit separate.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And I'm picking that Raging Chocolate is a maker of
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: very fine, high end chocolates. Would never use lab grown
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: beans just for the look.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, no, It's one of the few ways that
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: we can differentiate ourselves from those big courts though.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Guys, Mike, thank you and enjoy your marvelous day at work.
• 3:33
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• 3:36
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• 3:39
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