No more coffee or chocolate? Climate change could turn many everyday foods into rare luxuries

While historically certain foods such as coffee, chocolate and spices were luxury items, today these foods are supermarket staples in many developed countries. However, rising temperatures and unreliable rainfall could turn this around again over the next few decades.

“Chocolate and coffee could both become scarce, luxury foods again because of climate change,” says Monika Zurek, a senior researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. 

Vast swathes of land in Ghana and Ivory Coast could become unsuitable for cocoa production if global temperature rises reach 2C, according to a 2013 study. “Cocoa used to be for kings and nobody else. Climate change is hitting production areas hard…it could become more luxurious again,” says Zurek. 

Climate change could wipe out half of the land used to grow coffee worldwide by 2050, according to a 2015 study. Another study suggests that areas suitable for growing coffee in Latin America could decrease by 88% by 2050 due to rising temperatures. 

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“The danger of everyday products becoming luxury items is disheartening,” says Monique Raats, director of the Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Centre at the University of Surrey. “Many foods could become out of reach for a lot of people.”

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