Chocoholic Brazil seeks to reclaim seat as top cocoa producer

As a predominantly Catholic nation, Easter remains a big deal in Brazil. Symbolizing the end of Lent and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, large family lunches on Easter Sunday are ubiquitous up and down the country, and children are gifted with chocolate eggs.

While Easter gatherings are off the menu this year — as the coronavirus pandemic reaches its worst point — nothing can stop Brazil’s appetite for Easter eggs. The world’s fifth-largest consumer of chocolate, Brazilians only eat fewer chocolate Easter eggs than the British, and supermarket aisles at this time of year are typically decorated with veritable jungles of eggs, hanging from overhead displays. 

Not too long ago, Brazil was the world’s second-largest producer of cocoa beans, harvesting over 430,000 tons of cocoa per year during the 1980s. This all changed in 1989, with the introduction of witches’ broom disease, which destroyed 75 percent of all cacao plants in the northeastern state of Bahia. This coincided with a dramatic drop of cocoa...