For many Americans celebrating Easter, the holiday is incomplete without chocolate: chocolate bunnies and eggs, bars tucked into Easter baskets, candy hidden in plastic eggs for Easter egg hunts. But the rocketing cocoa costs will mean higher prices for chocolate candy this year, and Donald Trump’s tariffs on all imports will likely keep prices high for the foreseeable future. Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars on sweets during what the National Confectioners Association calls “the big four candy seasons”: Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and the holidays. Last year, Americans spent $5.4bn in Easter candy, according to the association. But the price of chocolate candy specifically has been rising over the last year, largely because of the soaring cost of cocoa, the key ingredient for chocolate. In 2023, farmers in west Africa – where 70% of the world’s cocoa is harvested – started to struggle with climate-related crises, including drought and plant disease, that decimated their cocoa production. Estimates put the cocoa deficit at over 400,000, significantly inflating the price of cocoa over the last few years. Cocoa has cost around $2,000 a ton over the last few decades. In 2024, it peaked at over $12,000. This has led to chocolate prices soaring across the world. Hershey, the biggest chocolate producer in the United States, raised the prices of its chocolates last year, and ultimately struggled to maintain consumer demand. The company had its worst profit in seven years in 2024. Chocolate is particularly sensitive to price increases because it’s an item in the grocery store that doesn’t really have any substitutes, said Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. This is why the price of eggs has risen so much, and why painting potatoes instead doesn’t quite work. “If you know you’re going to grill this weekend and chicken prices are high, maybe you’re more likely to make hamburgers or pork chops rather than chicken breast,” Balagtas said. “But chocolate-chip cookies without chocolate chips are a little tough.” And now, with Trump’s new tariffs in place, the price of chocolate is expected to rise even more. While economists don’t know exactly what the effects of tariffs will look like, the Yale Budget Lab estimates that tariffs could cost consumers $4,900 a year, with an average price increase of 3% across all goods. Chocolate prices will be no exception. When Trump introduced his latest slate of tariffs in early April, he had a direct message for American companies. “If you want your tariff rate to be zero,” he said, “then you build your product right here in America.” For many businesses deeply tied to the global supply chain, shifting manufacturing to the US is complicated and costly. For chocolate manufacturers, it’s impossible. The cacao plant, which produces cocoa, can only be grown in tropical climates, of which there are only two in the US: Hawaii and Puerto Rico. This means the vast majority of cocoa consumed in the US are imported. “The United States produces, I’m going to generously say, 100 tons of cocoa a year,” said Greg D’Alesandre, co-owner and chocolate “sourcerer” for Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco. “We use about 120 tons of cocoa a year, and Dandelion is considered a very, very small chocolate maker. There’s no chance that [the US] can make all the cocoa that we actually need.” This means that chocolate makers big and small are affected by universal tariffs. Not only do chocolate producers have to worry about the high price of cocoa, but also inflation in other parts of their manufacturing process. “I’m more concerned about packaging prices,” said Oliver Holecek, owner of Primo Chocolate based in Troy, New York. “Most paper manufacturing happens in China, and there’s just really not a lot of great resources in the US yet.” Shipping prices could also be impacted by the tariffs, as congestion builds up at American ports as companies grapple with the new tariffs. It all adds up to an unstable environment, particularly for smaller chocolate businesses that don’t have the leverage and resources as bigger manufacturers. While Dandelion had to increase prices last year amid the rise in cocoa prices, D’Alesandre said it’s unclear how the company’s customer base will respond to further increases. “I’ve known three chocolate makers that have gone out of business over the last three years because there’s too much turmoil in pricing,” D’Alesandre said. “It’s very difficult to make a plan for it … we’re doing our best to make plans, but a lot of it is wait and see.”
Author: Lauren Aratani in New York