Marilyn's Photos - Apr 4 2026 - Last Call for Chocolate
This being the chocolate holiday of the year, news organizations of any sort are exposing the sad demise of chocolate bars into chocolate candy. I remember when cheese got changed into cheese food, and those thin slices showed up in the grocery store in the 1950s. I remember knowing as a child that they didn't taste good.
This chocolate demise is attributed to chocolate crops in crises due to climate change. The price of chocolate spiked at an all-time high in 2024. It is valued per tonne, so it was over US $12,000 a tonne in 2024, up 400% - $3,300 in 2023. The price has gone down through most of 2025, but the crises hasn't gone away. Drought in West Africa and crop disease are the two factors that are here to stay. Seventy percent of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa.
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups have changed so much that the Reese grandson now refuses to eat them - after having spent a lifetime consuming a butter cup a day. He is showcased in all of the articles on chocolate's flavour demise.
It turns out that the Skylon Tower was financed by Reese's Chocolate owner C.Richard Reese, son of the original inventor. There's the idea that the tower's observation deck was modelled to look like a peanut butter cup.
Gerry and I worked at the /Skylon Tower in 1970. There was a Reese's connection with one of the relatives running the Canadian Gift Shop where I worked. I remember that all the candy was stored in a locked wire cage in the storage room - and that there were a lot of Reese's Chocolate Cups on the shelves then. It makes me think chocolate has been extraordinarily popular since forever.
I found archival footage of Niagara Falls and the Skylon Tower from the 1970s HERE.
This Easter display at the Niagara Falls Floral Showcase Greenhouse is from 2011. They have never had a display like this again.
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