This past year has been somewhat of a sour one in the world of sweets. Halloween candy prices increased by a whopping 13% in 2023 amid skyrocketing sugar costs and a massive sugar shortage
CoBank, a cooperative bank that provides financial services to several industries in rural America, revealed in a new report that price hikes for chocolate "are likely" in 2024.
The reason? Cocoa prices have surged to nearly 65% higher than they were a year ago, and manufacturers are expected to roll out additional price increases to offset those elevated costs.
Any price hikes in 2024 would be in addition to a 7.2% surge in chocolate prices in the United States over the past two years, according to CoBank, which cited data from the consumer researcher Eurobank International.
The price increases seem to be having a mixed effect on chocolate sales. Because chocolate has gotten more expensive, total sales of the confection increased in 2023.
CoBank believes that chocolate volume sales could decrease even more moving forward, while dollar sales could even start to decline because of the elevated prices.
The rise in cocoa prices is connected to heavy rains and disease that negatively impacted the cocoa crop in West Africa, which grows about 70% of the world's cocoa,
Until then, consumers shouldn't be too surprised if they find themselves paying even more for their favorite chocolates at the grocery store.