Climate change threatens global cocoa and chocolate production, but a new study highlights a promising solution—pollination.

It will be harder to find sweet deals on chocolate this Valentine’s Day. In fact, the cost of chocolate might put a bitter taste in your mouth.

Mary Leonard’s busy season that started pre-Halloween wraps up post-Valentine’s Day on Monday. But the chocolatier and owner of Chocolat Céleste in St. Paul said it’s already felt like an “off” season.

With the price of cocoa beans setting unprecedented records on the commodities market, it will certainly turn the gift of love into a bigger financial commitment than it once was. Turns out that if love is reputed to be eternal, a low price for cocoa, the essential ingredient in chocolate, is not.

Chocolate lovers would be forgiven for thinking Kate Rumsey, owner of Rumsey's Chocolaterie in Thame, Oxfordshire, has the best job in the world. But she said soaring cocoa prices, caused by climate change and crop disease, meant times were tough for the business.

Executives from Hershey Co. and Mondelez International Inc. signaled more price increases may be coming as the chocolate makers navigate a sustained rise in cocoa prices.