December 2025 News & AMA | #PSC 165
Episode 165 of #PodSaveChocolate features chocolate news that’s fit to eat and AMA/Ask me Anything (about chocolate and cocoa) for December 2025.
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Episode 165 Overview
In this episode: News that’s fit to eat for December, 2025!
People participating live can Ask Me Anything in the chat at any point during the episode.
Topics lined up to be covered include:
The Ongoing Saga of the Cost of Cocoa
| MARKETS |
|---|
| Futures Prices / Futures Overview – Barchart.com |
| Graph – Trading Economics |
| ICCO Pricing Stats |
| Breaking: Whither the EUDR? |
Patterns and trends
- Regulatory pragmatism: Streamlining downstream obligations is a shift from “everyone files” toward a single “first‑importer anchor,” reducing redundant statements while keeping traceability and supplier knowledge in place.
- Time pressure: Parliament adopted its position on 26 Nov 2025, with explicit warnings that if discussions aren’t finished by mid‑December, the original dates apply for medium/large on 30 Dec 2025 and micro/small on 30 Jun 2026.
- Cocoa‑specific angle: The sector expects an extra year for large operators (to 30 Dec 2026) if the delay passes, but remains cautious (“too early to foresee implications,” per WCF).
- Ongoing calibration: The planned April 2026 simplification review signals the EU expects to iterate implementation details without lowering environmental standards.
More News
| TL;DR? | browsing headlines |
|---|---|
| News? | Top Chocolate News from Google News |
| News | Rocher now available in a new shape Will the change lead to conspiracy theories about changes in the recipe? |
| News | Hershey jumps on the “Dubai” chocolate bandwagon – LTO little, LTO late? |
| M&A | Ritter Sport buys Chocolove |
| Op Ed | Why Premium Hot Chocolate Is the Winter Drink Americans Can’t Get Enough Of |
| Dates | CHOCOA 2026 day-by-day schedule announced: Trade Fair (18–20 Feb); Festival (21–22 Feb) |
| Dates | Dates are going viral |
Closer Look
Nick Brown
Download the dataset on Harvard Dataverse
Nick Brown
They announce an overhaul with, apparently, no specifics about what will be overhauled.
From the story:
Coffee is one of Fairtrade’s original and largest products. Earlier this year, the organization reported that producer organizations harvested about 578,000 metric tons of Fairtrade coffee in 2023, with nearly 775,000 coffee farmers in the system. Approximately half of that volume was also organic-certified. In 2023, producer cooperatives took in €82.4 million ($95.4 million) in Fairtrade premiums.
- 578,000 MT from 775,000 farmers is an average of about 750kg per farmer.
- $95.4 million in premiums spread across 775,000 farmers is an average premium payment of about $123 per farmer (and about $165/MT).
- However, only part of the certified volume is sold with the Fairtrade minimum price and premium attached. The 2025 report noted that certified cooperatives sold, on average, [just] 35% [emphasis added] of their coffee on Fairtrade terms in 2023.
More “Hot” Trends
Maria Scinto
| More HotChoc | |
|---|---|
| Recipe | How to make hot chocolate 10x better |
| Recipe | Earl Grey Hot Chocolate |
| Experience | The Hot Cocoa Flight |
| Guide | Grocery Store Hot Chocolate Mixes Ranked From Best To Worst |
Future Episodes
AVPA Update
Episode Hashtags
#News #AMA #AskMeAnything
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
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Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
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