We are a united people of chocolate-crazy people! Only the Germans treat themselves to more chocolate than we do. If the pesticide initiative is adopted, the melting luck would probably be more expensive. Because then only pesticide-free food will be allowed to be imported. So only organic cocoa, which costs more than conventionally grown cocoa.
“Chocolate would probably be 25 to 35 percent more expensive,” says David Yersin (59). With his Winterthur company Pronatec, he is the largest Swiss raw materials trader in organic and fair trade cocoa. Anyone who wants to produce organic chocolate knocks at Yersin. He knows the farmers, he knows the prices, he knows the problems. And the biggest problem: Chocolate is just too cheap at the moment!
Are foreign countries willing to pay more?
The Swiss have never spent so little on food. In 2006, an average household still used 8.6 percent of its gross income on food, in 2018 it was just 7.3 percent. Shouldn’t the chocolate then cost a little more?
The problem is not (only) the Swiss market. Rather, the pesticide initiative threatens to turn the local food industry upside down. Swiss manufacturers produce 200,000 tons of chocolate per year, 70 percent of which is exported. The main customer is Germany – “a very price-sensitive market,” says Urs Furrer, director of the Chocosuisse industry association.
For him, the question arises: “Are you prepared to pay more for Swiss chocolate abroad because it’s organic?” If not, jobs and Switzerland as a production location are at risk. “It is quite possible that export-oriented manufacturers in particular will say goodbye to Switzerland and produce abroad,” he says.
Too expensive to stay?
The chocolate industry is not alone. The beverage manufacturer Redbull in Widau SG has been producing energy drinks for the whole world since 2005. Every second Redbull can sold is said to come from the plant in the Rhine Valley. Will it stay that way if only organic sugar can be used?
Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, is under the same pressure. All Nespresso capsules that are put into a machine anywhere in the world come from three Swiss plants in Romont FR, Avenches VD and Orbe VD. And they should only use organic coffee in the future.
Neither Redbull nor Nestlé want to say whether they will stick to Switzerland if the initiative is accepted.
Only: the Swiss cross on the chocolate packaging is a best seller; Nespresso stands for quality made in Switzerland. Would this trademark be given up so quickly? “Swiss Made is an important sales argument, but not the only one,” says Chocosuisse Director Furrer. And once you have the Swiss image, you won’t lose it again anytime soon.
Not enough organic on the world market
Furrer also doubts that the initiative can even be implemented. There is simply not enough organic cocoa available on the world market. “We would need at least half of the world’s organic supply to meet demand,” he says.
The coffee industry is on the same page. There is not such a large organic production in the world ”, says Michael von Luehre, Secretary General of IG Kaffee Schweiz. At the moment it is barely more than two to three percent.
“Industry just doesn’t want to pay anymore”
Commodity trader David Yersin (59) does not accept that. He says that farmers in Latin America would like to grow more organic cocoa. “But the demand is not yet great enough.”
If everyone had to produce organically, demand would increase and so would supply. Then there would also be enough organic cocoa on the world market to meet Swiss demand.
The big chocolate manufacturers, however, would not move on their own. “The industry is just not happy when it has to pay more for the raw materials,” he says. “But the cocoa farmers would be happy!” Because producers in the countries of origin cannot live with the price that is currently being paid for chocolate. ” Yersin is convinced: “What the consumer would pay more for chocolate would benefit the farmers.”