Why chocolate bars are vanishing — ‘it’s time to say goodbye’
Chocolate is shrinking, getting more expensive or disappearing
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The price of your favourite chocolate bar is set to increase even more.
Cocoa has already jumped in price by more than 40% in just the last month, hitting £4,909 per metric tonne on Friday, up from £3,443 on January 9. On Friday alone the price jumped by more than 5% on London’s ICE exchange.
Nestle earlier this week said that it would no longer make Breakaway and Yorkie biscuit bars, citing falling sales.
On Thursday, US producer Hershey’s said it was cutting costs by 300 million dollars (£238 million) and warned it would miss market forecasts.
Cocoa prices had already risen massively, from around £1,904 a year ago, and last month Cadbury’s warned that it was having to make “carefully considered price increases”.
“Making changes to the price of our products is always a last resort, however, costs across our supply chain have risen steeply,” it said in a response to a customer on X, formerly Twitter.
“Core ingredients we heavily rely on, like cocoa and sugar are a lot more expensive, while the cost of energy, packaging, and transport also remain high.
“As a result, we are having to make some carefully considered price increases across our range so we can continue to provide consumers with the brands they love without compromising on taste or quality.”
Michele Buck, who runs the Hershey Company, said the company would have to change prices in light of higher cocoa costs, in order to manage the business.
Research by Which? last year found that the price of Christmas chocolate boxes had risen by at least 50% compared to the year before.
Towards the end of last year, the price of chocolate had been increasing at nearly twice the speed of other food and drink at supermarkets.
In September it emerged that chocolate brand Galaxy had cut the size of its Smooth Milk bar from 110g to 100g, while the price had increased from 99p to £1.25 in Tesco. On Friday a 110g Galaxy bar cost £1.35 on the supermarket’s website.
Nestle has announced it will stop making two of Britain’s favourite childhood biscuits, the Breakaway and Yorkie biscuit bars.
A Nestle spokeswoman said: “We know fans will be disappointed to see it go, but it’s time for us to say goodbye to Breakaway.
“We have seen a decline in the sales of Breakaway over the past few years and, unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision to discontinue it.
“By saying goodbye to Breakaway, we can focus on our best-performing brands, as well as develop exciting new innovations to delight consumers’ tastebuds.”
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