- Hershey is raising chocolate prices. That will make the cost of a candy bar up to 20% higher at retail. The company is the latest to increase prices as cocoa costs remain well above their historical average, with no relief in sight.
That mid-afternoon Kit-Kat bar you gobble to get through the work day is about to cost you more.
Hershey’s has told its retail customers it will be increasing the cost of products as cocoa costs continue to soar. The double-digit percentage increase (averaging between the mid-teens and 20%) will be passed along to the consumer. The company says roughly three-quarters of its candy portfolio will still cost $4 or less.
The price increases come on the heels of similar moves by Lindt & Spruengli and Oreo-maker Mondelez.
Cocoa prices are down from their high of $12,000 per metric ton at the end of last year, but the current rate of $8,100 or so is still far above historical averages—and no relief is expected in the near future.
Those price increases have led some scientists to look for ways to cut costs. Food scientists at Zurich’s Federal Institute of Technology, for example, say they have developed a method to utilize more of the cocoa fruit to make chocolate. Chocolate today is made using just the beans of the cocoa fruit. The rest is discarded. Scientists, though, say they’ve found a way to incorporate the whole fruit—and to make chocolate without using added sugar.
Other issues are driving the price of chocolate higher. The industry is facing new regulations as officials work to eliminate the child labor and deforestation issues that have been tied to the chocolate industry. (Starting next year, any chocolate imported to the European Union must come with a guarantee that no deforestation took place in growing the cocoa used to make it.)