Get ready to pay more for your next chocolate bar. The 2009-2010 cocoa supply shortfall is estimated at 124,000 metric tons, according to Fortis Bank Nederland NV and VM Group. The supply situation is intensified by an increase in grindings, up 3.3% from last year.

The London spot market is setting 21-year records. Cocoa for May delivery climbed 0.7% to 2,344 pounds ($3,581 a ton).

Forward futures contracts on the ICE exchange show a bullish trend. July cocoa reached $3,242, the highest level since January 29.

Last year's bull run in commodities was led mainly by oil, grains and gold. This year we've had spectacular bull runs in the "soft" commodities, which include mainly, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar and orange juice.

Tea is at an all-time high; cocoa is at a 30-year high; and sugar is at a 28.5-year high. Orange juice reached its highest price in 15 months. Tea prices for the best quality broken pekoe, or BP1, surged to a record $5.02 a kilogram, up 70% since January.

If you look at commodity prices like gold, oil and grains you are seeing that prices have fallen sharply since last July. Bucking this trend is a lesser known commodity, namely cocoa, which traded at 1,820 British pounds per tonne.

The questions you are probably asking are: why is the price of cocoa so high? and what is causing this big jump in price? For the past three years and especially this year, a combination of events have come together to set this price rise in motion. First, the weather has been bad in the Ivory Coast, a leading producer of cocoa, with cold weather and heavy rains. Also there has been a disease called the black pod disease which attacks the cocoa plant. Add to this a series of strikes by farmers and finally growers used less fertilizer this year because the cost was too high. Taken together these factors caused a 40% drop in production to 251,000 tons from the Ivory Coast.. Cocoa inventories are now only 39% of global production, down 54%

If there is a lessening of demand next year, perhaps prices will level off a bit, but for now prices remain at these very high levels.