By the numbers: Counting cocoa’s costBy the numbers: Counting cocoa’s cost

Cocoa is big business, especially around Valentine’s Day, when chocolate candies, truffles and gift boxes fly off store shelves. With an improved economy, stellar sales of cocoa-made sweets should last all year. But experts say increased demand is pinching the world’s cocoa supply, turning a two-year surplus into a deficit and jacking up prices. Here’s the cocoa outlook.

4.04 million

Tons of cocoa beans ground globally in 2012–2013, a 74,000-ton cocoa deficit

178,000

Forecasted cocoa deficit (in tons) in 2013–2014

400

Number of cocoa beans required to make 1 pound of chocolate   

90%

Global cocoa production that comes from small farms

$19.9 billion

U.S. chocolate candy sales in 2012