Ebola Fears Hitting the Chocolate Industry

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Ebola is putting a fear into the worldwide chocolate industry.

It turns out a majority of cocoa beans are grown and harvested in West Africa, which is being ravaged by the Ebola outbreak.

Dan Abel Jr., with Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate company, says that is just further increasing the pressure on chocolate prices.

“Chocolate is up about 38 percent for the year, which is the highest in history … We don’t need anything else to kind of hurt the supply,” Abel says.

He figures those West African ports that ship out cocoa beans would have to be closed at least six months before they started impacting chocolate prices here – and he says they keep a lot of finished product stateside and in St. Louis for occasions like these.

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