00:00Is your favourite Easter egg shrinking?
00:03Well, this might be why.
00:06While annual food and drink inflation in the UK slowed to just under 4% in February,
00:11the cost of chocolate has surged by almost 10% in a year, driven by ongoing supply issues.
00:18That's pushing up the price of sweet treats this Easter.
00:21New research shows the cost of popular branded chocolate eggs has risen by more than 40% in some cases.
00:29And at the same time, the size of some of those eggs has shrunk.
00:35Cocoa prices hit all-time highs in 2024, but since then, costs have fallen nearly 70%.
00:41The price of Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies remains high
00:45because the cocoa used in this year's production would have been purchased well before the decline in prices.
00:52So let's bring in food industry consultant Judy Gaines.
00:55And she heads up Jay Gaines Consulting, which specialises in soft commodities.
01:01And Judy, I've got to ask you, is this a case of egg-stortion?
01:06No.
01:07In this case, absolutely not.
01:09The manufacturers are truly justified in having to have had to raise prices.
01:17We had a situation where top two growers in the world accounting for more than 65% of total world
01:25production.
01:26Both took a huge hit in their production and prices went up by 500%.
01:34And I know that cocoa prices are off those highs from 2024, but I understand they are still way higher
01:43than before that spike.
01:45Am I right?
01:46That is absolutely correct.
01:49And manufacturers have a very long lead time from the time they actually purchase the cocoa, have it shipped,
01:58and then grind the cocoa, manufacture the Easter eggs, get them into stores.
02:04And therefore, what you're seeing now is chocolate that was really priced just as the market was coming off that
02:13peak.
02:13Right. So how long will it be before cocoa products, chocolate in particular, get back to reasonable levels?
02:22So there's four main buying periods, the seasonals for chocolate.
02:28So you have Easter, and then you have Halloween, and you have Christmas, and you have Valentine's Day.
02:34Okay. So later in the year.
02:37So when you're looking at Christmas, seasonal, those fall wrapped Santas, you'll be paying less of a price than for
02:44your Easter bunny.
02:45Okie dokie.
02:46But what about shrinkflation?
02:47Because this seems to be, from a consumer perspective, an attempt to cheat the consumer into thinking they're getting the
02:54same product,
02:54but they're actually getting less than what they bargained for.
02:58Well, there's something else that you didn't mention here, and that is sometimes the ingredient is also changed.
03:07So you have the size goes down, the price goes up, and the ingredient panel changes,
03:13and consumers need to be very careful on wording like chocolatey or chocolate-flavored as opposed to milk chocolate.
03:24So manufacturers faced with the exorbitant price increases had to, and then on top of that, at the time,
03:33there was also Trump tariffs came in, and you had high shipping costs.
03:40So many factors went into this, and the price of cocoa butter itself surged even more than the price of
03:47cocoa beans.
03:48So it's not just about those difficult harvests in West Africa two years ago.
03:53Yeah, there's more to it.
03:55So what happened is manufacturers had to take action on all fronts.
04:01So it's not just shrinking the size and raising the price, but there's also those changes on the ingredient panel.
04:08Well, thank you so much for putting it all...
04:09Most of these seasonal candies.
04:11Well, thank you for putting it into perspective.
04:13That is Judy Gaines, heading up J. Gaines Consulting, which specializes in soft commodities.
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