The Price of a Warming World: What Cocoa and Orange Juice Reveal About Supply Chain Risk
- Sarah Drakard
- Dec 16, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
You may have noticed it this winter. The advent calendar that costs more than last year. The Terry’s Chocolate Orange that feels like a small indulgence rather than a given. Even the humble Christmas satsuma edging up in price.
In the UK, chocolate and citrus are part of seasonal comfort. Hot chocolate on dark evenings. A satsuma in your Christmas stocking. These are familiar rituals, which is exactly why recent price rises feel so jarring. They turn everyday products into signals that something deeper is happening in global supply chains.
Behind these small moments sit two commodities under acute pressure. Cocoa and orange juice have both seen sharp price increases driven by climate volatility, disease, and long-standing fragility in agricultural supply chains. What appears at the supermarket shelf is often the final stage of disruption that began months or even years earlier.
The bigger context: climate risk is now cost risk
Cocoa production is heavily concentrated in West Africa, where extreme rainfall, drought and crop disease have reduced yields and destabilised supply. Orange production has faced similar challenges, with hurricanes, heat stress and citrus greening disease hitting major growing regions in the US and Brazil.
What matters for procurement teams is not the individual causes, but the pattern. Climate-related disruption is becoming more frequent, less predictable, and more expensive to absorb. These shocks rarely arrive as single events. They compound. One bad harvest tightens supply. A second resets pricing expectations. By the time contracts are renewed, higher costs are already locked in.
This is why sustainability and ESG discussions have shifted tone. They are no longer just about values, reporting or regulatory compliance. Increasingly, they are about operational resilience. The ability to understand where risk sits in the supply base, and how exposed the organisation is before volatility shows up in pricing.
Practical advice: how to spot trouble early and prepare
The good news is that most climate-driven supply shocks do not come without warning. The challenge is turning early signals into something procurement teams can act on.
First, map dependency, not just suppliers.
Knowing who your suppliers are is not enough. You need to know what they depend on. Which raw materials matter most. Which regions they operate in. Where there is concentration risk. Once those dependencies are visible, external signals such as weather reports, crop forecasts, or commodity price movements become relevant rather than overwhelming.
Second, treat supplier data as live information.
Many organisations collect supplier data once a year and then archive it. Climate risk makes that approach obsolete. Locations change, certifications expire, insurance coverage shifts, and production methods evolve. Keeping this information current allows procurement teams to spot weakening resilience before it becomes a crisis.
Third, link sustainability data to commercial decisions.
Sustainability indicators are most valuable when they inform action. Suppliers investing in climate resilience, diversification or mitigation plans are often better long-term partners, even if they are not the cheapest today. In volatile markets, that stability can outweigh short-term savings.
Finally, plan options, not predictions.
Early warning is not about perfect forecasting. It is about having credible alternatives ready. Secondary suppliers, adjusted specifications, flexible contracts, or phased purchasing strategies all become easier when risk is identified early rather than under pressure.
This is where structured supplier data systems matter. Tools like Canopy help procurement teams centralise supplier information, track risk factors over time, and connect external signals to real supplier relationships, making it easier to move early instead of reacting late.
Conclusion
Chocolate and oranges may feel like seasonal indulgences, but their rising costs tell a serious story. Climate volatility is no longer a distant risk. It is already reshaping supply chains, pricing and procurement decisions.
Organisations that prepare won’t eliminate disruption, but they will experience less surprise and retain more control. By understanding supplier dependencies, keeping data current, and using sustainability information as operational intelligence, procurement teams can turn climate risk from an unpredictable shock into a manageable variable.
In a world where even comfort food is becoming uncertain, preparedness is no longer optional.
References
BBC News – Why your chocolate is getting smaller, more expensive and less chocolatey
Reuters – Climate, disease and crop issues affecting orange juice prices
Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit – Climate change and food price inflation
World Economic Forum – Resilience and sustainability in cocoa supply chains
