Chocolate love has its price on Valentine's Day as cocoa costs make hearts shudder, not flutter

BRUGES, Belgium (AP) — St. Valentine chocolates always seek to show how deep your love is. This year, it might just also show how deep your pockets are.

With the price of cocoa beans setting unprecedented records on the commodities market, it will certainly turn the gift of love into a bigger financial commitment than it once was. Turns out that if love is reputed to be eternal, a low price for cocoa, the essential ingredient in chocolate, is not.

“The price increase of cocoa is absolutely spectacular, now for 2, 2½ years,” said Philippe de Sellier, the head of both Leonidas and Belgian chocolate federation Choprabisco. When it stood at less than $2,000 a ton in the summer of 2022, it really took over early last year and peaked at well over $12,000 during the Christmas season and has been hovering around the $10,000 mark since.

“We are seeing unprecedented prices. They haven't been this high for the last 50 years,” said Bart Van Besien, policy adviser of the Oxfam fair trade group. And the impact can be felt deep in chocolate gourmet country Belgium, where some of its 280 chocolate companies are left with a bleeding heart during Valentine's week.

Dominque Persoone, owner of the famed Chocolate Line brand, still has plenty of beans to grind in his workshop in Bruges, but considers himself lucky, partly because he also has his own cocoa plantation in Mexico.

“I have a lot of colleagues who are really in trouble, because the price is too high," he said. “If you don't have good contacts, they just don't deliver anymore.”

Some just close for Valentine, he said, turning one of the few financial bonanzas of the year into a forced vacation, hoping that Easter, with its eggs and bunnies, will bring better tidings. Many chocolatiers can't go for the usual profit margins and turn all the extra costs of the cocoa prices over to their customers. Persoone said that his chocolates increased in price by 20% over the last year alone while de Selliers said that it depends very much from producer to producer.

The shock of cocoa prices pretty much is a metaphorical perfect storm, mixing climate, disease, commodity speculation, the plight of farmers and social ascendency around the world into one heady mix.

“The drop that has happened now in production was directly linked to climate change,” said Van Besien, blaming changes in annual rain and drought patterns in western Africa that weakened the sensitive trees in key production areas. Persoone also said that the temperature differences between night and day increased in the small strip of land around the equator where the trees can thrive. Compounded by disease, it made sure too many harvests failed.

At the same time across the world, populations lifted themselves out of poverty, middle classes expanded in places like China and the craving for the delicacy increased.

And making matters worse, the years of slumping prices for the beans simply drove farmers off the land to look for a better future in the cities and pushed production further down. De Selliers said that “60 % of cocoa comes from Ivory Coast and Ghana and these farmers have to make a better living. It is extremely important.”

Persoone concurred: “We didn't pay enough to have an honest price for the farmers.”

So, strangely enough, low prices then, help cause high prices now.

“The big irony in the cocoa industry is that farmers are now getting a fair price at the moment they are abandoning cocoa farming,” Van Besien said. “With the price they are getting right now, they could have invested in sustainable practices. They could have sent their children to school.”

Does it mean a premier box of chocolates is a guilty pleasure on Valentine's Day?

“Yeah, the guilt question .... It's one that always works,” said Van Besien, the fair trade expert. “We could not survive if we would be thinking about these things all the time,” arguing that legislation should trump consumer emotions.

“We should have laws that make buying cocoa below the cost of the production something illegal. And it should not be up to the consumer to make this decision,” he said. Both de Selliers and Persoone hope that if the prices drop down again, they stay around the $5,000 or $6,000 mark.

“I really, really hope the money goes to the farmers,” Persoone said.

So in the meantime, despite the price hikes, the chocolate shouldn't leave too bitter a taste.

“It’s a small luxury that most people still can afford,” Persoone said. "I hope it stays like this.”

Two large cats made of Chocolate are on display in a window in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Chocolate bark is on display behind a glass counter at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A saleswoman walks by boxes of artisan chocolates at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A worker holds chocolate Valentine hearts on a drying tray in the workshop at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Artisan chocolates are displayed in a box at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Chocolate lollypops are displayed in a glass sales case at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Artisan chocolatier Dominique Persoone pours cocoa beans in a machine in his workshop at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Chocolate eggs dry in the workshop at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Artisan chocolatier Dominique Persoone sorts through cocoa beans in his workshop at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Artisan chocolatier Dominique Persoone sorts through cocoa beans in his workshop at The Chocolate Line, in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Chocolate angels and other figures for sale line a shelf at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Artisan chocolatier Dominique Persoone sorts through cocoa beans in his workshop at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Chocolate eggs dry in the workshop at The Chocolate Line in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Steelers could have outside linebacker T.J. Watt back for their “win or go home” showdown with Baltimore for the AFC North title on Sunday night.

Coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday he's “more optimistic” than he has been that the perennial Pro Bowl edge rusher will be available after sitting out each of the past three games while recovering from surgery to repair a partially collapsed lung sustained following a dry needling treatment.

Tomlin added he'd like to see Watt practice fully at some point this week. Watt was a limited participant last week before being held out of Sunday's 13-6 loss to Cleveland, a setback that cost the Steelers (9-7) a chance to wrap up the division with a week to go.

Now, Pittsburgh either needs to win or tie the Ravens (8-8) on Sunday night to win the AFC North for the first time since 2020.

Tomlin doesn't think Watt's extended downtime will have a significant impact on the 31-year-old Watt's stamina, should he be cleared to play.

“I doubt that TJ is ever out of football shape or conditioning over the course of a 12-month calendar,” Tomlin said. “I just know how he lives his life and how he prepares and how thoughtful he is in terms of what he puts in his body and how we trains.”

While Watt's familiar No. 90 could return, massive tight end Darnell Washington is out indefinitely after having surgery on Monday for a broken arm suffered in the first half against the Browns. Tomlin did not rule out Washington's potential availability should Pittsburgh advance to the playoffs, though the Steelers would likely need to make a deep run to have any chance of seeing the uniquely talented 6-foot-7, 300-plus-pound Washington in the huddle.

Wide receiver Calvin Austin III (hamstring), veteran left guard Isaac Seumalo (triceps), cornerback Brandon Echols (groin) and cornerback James Pierre (calf) — all of whom sat out last week — could return against the Ravens.

The Steelers will need as many healthy bodies available as possible, particularly on offense, to avoid a stunning late collapse. Pittsburgh sputtered in Cleveland without suspended wide receiver DK Metcalf, who will also sit out this week as punishment for making contact with a fan in Detroit earlier this month.

Pittsburgh managed just 160 net yards passing against the Browns, a big chunk of it coming on a last-second drive that ended with Aaron Rodgers throwing incomplete in the end zone to wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling on three consecutive plays.

Rodgers had perhaps his best game of the season in Pittsburgh's road win at Baltimore on Dec. 7, thanks in large part to a seven-catch, 148-yard performance from Metcalf. Downfield shots were nowhere to be found on a blustery day in Cleveland, where Rodgers' longest completion was a 29-yarder to tight end Pat Freiermuth.

While Tomlin allowed both teams will add a “wrinkle” or two in the rematch, the reality is scheme is unlikely to play a significant role in a series that has produced its fair share of memorable high-stakes meetings through the years.

The stakes should keep the Steelers from having a hangover after letting the lowly Browns jump to an early 10-point lead before holding on.

Asked if it was frustrating to lose to a team that came in with just three wins on the season with so much on the line, Tomlin shrugged.

“Man, there’s a lot of things that you could get frustrated about in our business,” he said. “I’ve learned to kind of always move forward. My windshield is much bigger than my rearview.”

Maybe, but there's a chance the game could also be the 264th and final regular-season game of quarterback Aaron Rodgers' Hall of Fame-caliber career. The 42-year-old four-time MVP said over the summer that his 21st season could be his last, though he also said last week he feels as if he's aging backward and has been relatively healthy save for a broken left wrist that forced him to sit out a loss to Chicago in late November.

Rodgers said on Sunday that he expects Pittsburgh to recover and beat the Ravens. That inherent confidence is one of the reasons the Steelers spent months courting him in free agency last spring.

“That’s one of the things that made him really attractive to us, that ‘can do’ attitude and the experience and resume that goes with it,” Tomlin said. “I don’t think it’s work for him. I think it is as natural as breathing. And so if he’s breathing, I expect to see that from him as we lean in on this game."

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Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin speaks during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Cleveland Browns, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/David Richard)