Valentine’s Day Chocolate Is Much More Expensive This Year

The price of cocoa has hit a record of $12,646 per metric ton in December 2024.

Years of ongoing bad weather in the cocoa-producing region of West Africa and the cocoa swollen shoot virus disease have hindered cocoa production. According to the Producer Price Index, the cost of manufacturing chocolate has increased by more than 167% since the beginning of 2023.

Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute sector manager David Branch says, “This Valentine’s Day expect prices for chocolate treats to increase around 10-20% over last year as the price of cocoa has more than doubled since the beginning of 2024.”

Hershey’s said it buys cocoa nearly a year in advance and that the cost at the store won’t reflect chocolate prices this Valentine’s Day. A one-pound bar of Hershey’s Chocolate costs $14.99.

“We continue to collaborate with our retail partners to ensure we offer a variety of products that meet the right occasions and price points for our consumers,” Hershey’s said in a statement.

CEO of Mondelez International — the company that owns Cadbury and Toblerone — Dirk Van de Put noted “the unprecedented cocoa inflation” this year in their 2024 fourth quarter earnings report.

Shoppers can try to avoid higher prices by buying chocolate made with cocoa powder as more premium chocolate contains a higher percentage of cocoa.

“Consider shopping for sweet treats that contain less cocoa, this could mean going for the non-cocoa items or grabbing an item that has a filler and is not 100% cocoa, which will make it cheaper,” Wells Fargo said in a report this February detailing this year’s prices, according to CNN.

As a follow-up to this information from Wells Fargo, what the chocolate marker believes the next crop of cocoa will be worth are up to 143% in 2024, according to Branch. It recently showed that the market for cocoa trading is less than $10,000, according to Intercontinental Exchange. However, Branch warns those prices will rapidly change eventually.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the market as to whether the harvests are going to be sufficient to erase this deceit with increased demand continuing to go up,” Branch said.

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