MUMBAI: For consumers, love may have come at a cost this Valentine’s Day. Chocolates, the go-to gifting choice for the season have become more expensive on the back of soaring global cocoa prices, nudging several companies to take price hikes. This essentially means that the price increases which have been taken over the past few months have now hit the markets and consumers are paying more to buy the same pack of their favourite chocolate. Amul, for instance, took a price hike of about 20%-30% for its chocolates around August 2024. “Global cocoa prices are trending at $10,000 per metric ton. We haven’t seen such price rise in the last 50 years. The situation doesn’t look good but we have to live with it,” Jayen Mehta, MD at Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which owns the brand Amul, told TOI. The company remains watchful of the situation, Mehta said, not ruling out further price hikes if the situation warrants. Global cocoa prices which have been on the boil for quite some time due to scarce supply reached nearly $13,000 per metric ton in December last year, hitting a record high.
Chocolate prices have surged by nearly 50% compared to Valentine’s Day last year, said Ashwin Rathi, chief financial officer at Smoor Chocolates. The company said that it has recorded a 100% increase in raw material costs over the past year. “While cocoa costs have nearly doubled, we have limited the price adjustment to only 30%-40% of the total increase. We have absorbed a significant portion (of the cost increase) to ensure our products remain accessible to our customers,” said Rathi.
For Indians who love to snack on chocolates, the rise in prices comes at a time when they have already been tightening their household budgets due to inflation.
Global chocolate makers like Mondelez, Hershey’s and Nestle have been grappling with rising prices of cocoa. In its recent earnings, Mondelez International, the maker of Cadbury chocolates termed the cocoa cost inflation as “unprecedented.” The company said that if cocoa prices remain elevated, more price increases may be required in the second half of 2025 and in 2026, although the attempt will be to hold on to the price points of low unit pricing (low unit packs) in “emerging markets” (like India).