Chocolate prices have jumped by almost a fifth in the run-up to Christmas, as a boom in cocoa supplies is failing to drive down costs.
New figures from Worldpanel revealed that chocolate prices are up 18.4pc on last year, leading to shoppers paying more for sweet treats at the supermarket.
The price of chocolate is rising faster than almost all other supermarket food items, according to Worldpanel, apart from fresh meat and chicken.
This has led to an increase in the price of well-known products, such as Cadbury’s bars, KitKats, Terry’s Chocolate Oranges and Galaxy chocolate.
KitKats are as much as 70pc more expensive than last year, while a 310g pack of Maltesers is £1.67 more costly, according to data from Trolley.co.uk, which tracks supermarket prices.
The price of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange has also jumped by 38p.
Chocolate maker Whitakers, based in Skipton, North Yorkshire, said it had also been forced to increase prices by around a fifth on average since the start of the year, in part owing to the impact of tax rises under Labour.
William Whitaker, the managing director, said: “To have to go to your customer base and say, ‘I’m sorry, but on top of the National Insurance, the minimum wage, the business rates, everything else, we’ve got a 20pc cost rise,’ that really tests the relevance of your products.”
Impact of rising prices
Some big brands have already resorted to using less cocoa to try to offset the price increase.
In October, it emerged that McVitie’s Penguin and Club bars could no longer be classed as chocolate because of less cocoa being used in their recipes.
It follows years of soaring cocoa prices because of poor harvests in West Africa, including Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
Cocoa is currently priced at around $5,930 (£4,450) per tonne, up from around $2,500 before the pandemic.
Prices initially started to surge when countries emerged from Covid, as demand for chocolate outstripped supply.
Economists at ING said the 2024/25 trading season “finished with a surplus of around 60,000 tonnes, which would be the first surplus since the 2020/21 marketing year”.
They said next year was also likely to see surplus supply, helping to bring down global cocoa prices.
However, this drop is expected to take some time to filter across into cheaper chocolate for British customers, given that companies buy cocoa in advance.
Mr Whitaker said he did not expect many companies to lower prices for customers until Christmas next year at the earliest.
He added: “It depends on when chocolate is bought. For prices to be lower next Christmas, suppliers would have to be free of contracts and buy that chocolate today.”