Vermont produces a lot of chocolate and cocoa products. It’s one of the state's top food exports.
But cacao doesn’t grow in Vermont, and climate change has been disrupting the global supply chain. Vermont businesses that rely on cocoa are having to make changes.
Miller Farm, a dairy farm in Vernon, is one of them. Their chocolate milk is one of their best-selling products. But in February, production almost came to a halt.
The farm was down to its last bag of cocoa powder. And Peter Miller, one of the owners of Miller Farm, said his usual supplier had run out.
"I couldn't find it anywhere," he said. "I was told there was a shortage due to climate change."
Eventually, Miller was able to find and buy cocoa powder from a different supplier. But he said changing the farm's chocolate milk recipe on the fly was "frightening."
“We didn’t know if we’d have a great falling out of customers," he said. "It’s like if Heinz had to change their ketchup formula. All of the sudden, it tastes different."
The cacao plant grows along the equator, largely in West Africa and Central and South America. Climate change in those regions is making weather unpredictable. And cacao is getting harder to grow.
Which means, for consumers like Miller Farm, it’s getting harder to buy.
And Miller Farm is not alone.
Amy Huyffer and her husband Earl Ransom have been making chocolate milk at Strafford Organic Creamery for about 20 years. Their cocoa powder supplier also recently ran out.
I mean we can make plans all day, but the agricultural gods tend to laugh at them.Amy Huyffer
Their solution was to amp up their supply of maple milk. Huyffer said they get their maple from a friend down the road.
“Unlike cocoa powder that I was working for weeks and then months to try and keep in stock, the maple syrup — I could call and Willis came up that afternoon with a new barrel," Huyffer said.
Strafford Organic Creamery now has chocolate milk again. But Huyffer says she doesn’t know what their supply will look like in the future.
“I mean we can make plans all day, but the agricultural gods tend to laugh at them," she said.
Other local businesses are improvising as well.
Lake Champlain Chocolates in Burlington is one of Vermont’s largest chocolatiers. And as cocoa gets harder to source, Lake Champlain Chocolates is trying to get creative.
"We make our own marshmallows here and we dip them in chocolate," communications manager Meghan Fitzpatrick said. "So we're trying to sell really delicious confections that maybe don’t use as much chocolate. You know, leaning into our caramels and other things we make here that don't require, like, a solid piece of chocolate."
Climate change is a crisis, but it also brings an opportunity for the farmers to negotiate better prices.Ernesto Méndez
Ernesto Méndez is a professor of agroecology at the University of Vermont who studies sustainable food systems. He says while climate change affects both the quality and quantity of cacao, there might be a silver lining for cacao farmers.
"Climate change is a crisis, but it also brings an opportunity for the farmers to negotiate better prices," he said.
Méndez says the consumers in the Global North might need to start paying more and offering more support to the producers in the Global South.
"Of course, they don't want to do it, because they’re going to lose some of that profit," he said. "But they’re realizing now that if they don’t do it, they might not have enough supply."
Meghan Fitzpatrick at Lake Champlain Chocolates agrees. She says people and corporations that buy cocoa have long enjoyed low prices.
“We — people who enjoy chocolate — we haven’t really been paying what chocolate is worth for a really long time," she said.
Fitzpatrick said Lake Champlain Chocolates started a new program this year to award micro-grants to cacao farmers to help address issues caused by climate change.
"We're looking to make some systemic changes at that level, you know, ensuring our future, because climate change is a real issue with cocoa," she said.
As the climate changes, everyone who is part of the cocoa supply chain is adapting. Luckily, Amy Huyffer at Strafford Organic Creamery said, that's what farmers are good at.
“Two most important words in farming are 'oh' and 'well,'" she said. "So we'll figure it out."
This story comes from a collaboration between Vermont Public and the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship. Production support by Kelsey Tolchin-Kupferer.
