[Economy Pick] The price of dessert is also "floating" due to the increase in cocoa prices.

[Anchor]
The third theme is the increase in cocoa prices and the price of dessert. Has the price of chocolate-based products increased a lot?

[Reporter]
From this month, confectionery companies have started to raise prices.

Haitai Confectionery increased the price of 10 products by an average of 8.59% while Orion increased the price of 13 products by an average of 10.6%.

Lotte Well Food has already increased the price of 17 products by 12% on average since June.

They revealed the background of the increase because the price of cacao, the main ingredient, has risen.

Not only confectionery companies but also small business owners who manufacture and sell desserts are on alert.

We've heard the story of chocolatiers and consumers who use chocolate to make desserts.

[Choi Soo-hyun / Chocolatier: 40,000 won is 60,000 won, and it's going up so clearly that you can feel it. I'm trying to hang in there, but I'm not sure what's going to happen later.]

[Lee Jung-min / Yeonhui-dong, Seoul: I eat a lot of chocolate products and snacks. Since the price has gone up, I think I'll be reluctant to buy chocolate products.]

[Anchor]
There's nothing that doesn't contain chocolate in confectionery, so why is the price of cacao rising?

[Reporter]
Cacao prices began to rise about a year ago.

For decades, it has been around $2,000 to $4,000 per ton, but it exceeded $4,000 in November last year and exceeded $10,000 in April this year.

It's still around $9,000.

70% of cacao production is produced in West Africa, and production has decreased due to the El Nino phenomenon, in which seawater temperatures rise by more than 1.5 degrees on average.

In addition, production plummeted further due to the occurrence of insect pests.

It is said that it takes about seven years to grow the cacao tree again.

Therefore, it doesn't seem easy to solve it in a short time.

So manufacturers are responding by raising prices or reducing chocolate content on "chocolate snack" products, depending on the manufacturer.