Dubai Eye 103.8’s Post

Transcript

The price of cocoa is going up at the moment. And what does that mean for producers? Well, let's ask the CEO of Co Chocola, Iman Sugathan, who joins us live in studio. Aman, thank you so much indeed for being with us. Hi, Tom. Good to have. Good to have you on board. Your reaction to this story? Ingredients getting more expensive, making life difficult. Absolutely, yes. Reaction not good because it has heavily impacted us, US artisanal. Calculate makers who are using whole cacao beans, especially it this we really felt this year the the, the beating of the global cocoa prices. I mean, in terms of of producers like yourself locally here at the moment. Are we at the behest of those sort of those global trade prices at the moment? Is supply difficult here into the UAE? You, you know, you hit the nail on the head. We are at the behest of the big chocolate makers because they're only, they're actually 23 big grinders in the world and they, they purchased 70% of the world's Coco. So if Ivory Coast and the West Africa is suffering, which is their main supplier, they are going to source elsewhere. And we are you were asking me about what the local effect is. I've been speaking with my with my friends in the industry and they say that cocoa butter, cocoa powder, whole cacao beans. Yeah, Jacobeans itself, nobody's giving prices more than for for more than a period of of good that it's good for five days. Can you imagine Nobody's giving long term prices. Why? Because they're just afraid that it's going to go up again. And even we went to golf food when we were speaking with, you know, Turkish suppliers, Belgian suppliers. Nobody wants to give long term prices. Yeah, this is this is how how bad it is. And Speaking of locally. If you see chocolates, they call. If they call it chocolates and the prices are still not increasing. Ask yourself, is it really chocolate that's in there? Because it's, it's crazy. And if you look at your favorite, let's say artisanal chocolate maker, you'll notice that they have been launching. I, I, I see, I see the trend, more chocolate, chocolates that have more inclusions, meaning they're using more nuts. They're, they're using more, you know, other, other things instead of the pure cocoa. Why? Because Coco is just so expensive. Before you'd say, no, we cannot put a lot of this ingredient, let's say this type of nut or that type of nut because it's, it's too expensive. No, it's cheaper to put expensive nuts because Coco is just tremendously, tremendously expensive. So you're not getting any sort of prices for the they're not giving your futures or anything like that. People are just waiting to see what harvest are looking like, are they? Yeah, nobody's giving, nobody's sure. And how, how high the prices will go. We thought next year there's, you know, it's going to be better. But speaking to cocoa suppliers, they're, they've, they've even given some of my friends in the in the industry a heads up if you want to order before again, another rice in cocoa butter, cocoa prices do that now before the year ends. So it's, you know, it's, it's an, it's an uphill climb for us chocolate makers. Left field question. You mentioned there the three big markets and of course the system are brokers around the world as well. I mean, given the investment into food security here and given the fact that we are now producing. Fruits, vegetables, other crops that we never thought we would. Yeah, several years ago. Has there been any chat about us potentially growing cocoa here or not? See Coco. Coco is it's a very special kind of blank because it it asks for a certain altitude. Is it asks for a certain, you know, even like in the Philippines where we source our cacao, there are certain areas where it grows really well. It's not also everywhere. So I think maybe in decades. They will find that technology to mimic because I know that in London, which Botanical Garden they've, they've managed to, you know, to grow some trees, but like a few trees because of very controlled environment. But right now it's going to be a bit difficult to do that here in the desert. Business continues apace. How has 2024 been for you in light of these prices? Very challenging, very challenging. We're quite lucky. We're growing, our sales are growing still, but we had to be creative. As well, actually last year, early last year, 2023, we were decreasing some of our prices. Imagine we were decreasing because we had the economies of scale. The business is growing, but 2024 was really tough because from January, February, it's just up and up and up the price of cocoa butter. It's 250% more expensive than last year. Can you imagine? So for us, like the other chocolate makers who are using real cacao, we still want to use real cacao. We are trying to veer away from, we are veering away from from palm oil. So we just use more nuts, more pistachio. He's saying as well, I mean, and 2025, I mentioned, I sort of said it in just a little bit earlier on that idea of chocolate and Dubai seemed to be going hand in hand at the moment, but of a viral sensation as well. Has that been good for the chocolate industry here? I think, yeah, I think yeah, I've, I love what they've done. I have a lot of respect for for those who have created it. And this has trickled down to to to other brands and to chocolate factories like us because the demand is there for the Dubai chocolate. The viral chocolate. And yeah, if we have a factory, you want chocolates, we could have a pistachio. Yes, it's possible. What's 2025 look like for you? OK, 2025, we're gonna work harder. Something you're gonna work harder and just be more creative. Because if the prices of our Coco are going up, well, we need to use alternative, not alternative. We used maybe, maybe more inclusions, less use of cacao, however, because we're a healthy chocolate black brand. Still want to keep our whole cacao because we do, we still sell 100% pure cacao and there is a market at least for us for that. So we're still going to have that. So we can still cater to to purists, but we have some alternatives, a little bit more nuts, a little bit more dates, a little bit more dried fruits. Yeah. And just move forward and upwards, right to two weeks into December, 2 weeks to go until the end of the year. Is this end of the year, what with Christmas, other festivities, a lot of gifting going on a good time of year. You super. This is the last quarter, I think makes up the half of the sales of the of the whole year. Wow. Yeah, because of the conferences and parties, year end parties, Christmas parties, a lot of corporate gifting conferences. So we are happy when it's winter. Quite right too, even when it's raining. Yes, quite right. So I know that you've just battled the rain. So man, thank you so much indeed for your time. All the best of the rest of the year. All the best for next year as well. And thank you so much indeed for sharing your story, Amanza Gutan. Joining us live in studio, the CEO of Koshka.