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This Halloween, the cost of indulging your sweet tooth is set to rise, with chocolate taking a backseat compared to previous years.
As the spooky season approaches, expect to find an increased variety of tangy gummies in the market, capitalizing on their popularity from last year. Trick-or-treat bags might also be brimming with pumpkin spice-flavored goodies. Meanwhile, experts in the cocoa industry are predicting that the ongoing high costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers.
With cocoa prices on the rise, candy manufacturers, from artisanal chocolatiers to major confectionery brands, are adjusting their strategies. This could result in smaller chocolate portions, increased prices, and reduced cocoa content in chocolates, leading to a less intense chocolate flavor than previously experienced.
Overall, candy prices have surged by 10.8% this Halloween season compared to last year, according to NielsenIQ data analyzed by the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative and shared with CNN. This increase significantly surpasses the general inflation rate.
In contrast, the analysis revealed that Halloween candy prices saw a modest rise of just 2.1% in 2024.
Halloween spending is no fun-sized matter. Americans shelled out $7.4 billion in Halloween chocolate and candy sales in 2024, a 2.2% increase from 2023, the National Confectioners Association said.
Escazú Chocolates, a bean-to-bar chocolate shop in Raleigh, North Carolina, sources most of its beans from Latin America. The shop said it has always worked with smaller farmers and paid them three to four times the commodity price of cacao – which essentially sets the minimum wage. The spike in prices has pushed up what Escazú pays those workers as well.
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Other cost-cutting measures include offering a smaller hot chocolate size, advertising non-chocolate ice cream toppings and moving to a cheaper location in Raleigh to save on rent.
And like many small businesses in America, Escazú is being hit by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, affecting not just the chocolate, but also aluminum in its packaging.
“The tariffs have hit every single piece of what goes into every single thing,” Tiana Young, co-owner of Escazú, told CNN. “There is no new normal.”
Halloween treats may look – and taste – a little different
Most Americans are not shopping at bean-to-bar specialty shops for Halloween candy. But even consumers of mass-produced candy can taste-and see-the difference compared to a few years ago.
Wells Fargo sector manager David Branch said users can expect to see more shrinkflation. Hershey told its retail partners in May that it would adjust its “price pack architecture,” corporate-speak for reducing the amount of product in a package so customers don’t feel like they’re paying more for chocolate.
Some specialty chocolate makers are also reducing the cocoa content in their bars and increasing the sugar, like selling a bar with 65% cocoa content instead of 75%.
Gummy candy and rising cocoa prices enjoy a sort of symbiotic relationship. Younger customers have been gravitating toward chewy, sweet treats-sales of sour candy, for example, grew 7% year over year, according to the National Confectioners Association. By making more gummies and less chocolate, candy companies appeal to those sugar- craving customers while saving their profit margins.
Companies are also launching special flavors that aren’t as reliant on chocolate-for example, cinnamon-toast-flavored KitKats help save on chocolate costs.
“We’re seeing more specialty products come out where they add the lower cost (fillings),” Branch said.
Candy by the numbers
Branch said that customers can expect to pay as much as last year for Halloween chocolate this year-if not more-up until Valentine’s Day. Although cocoa prices have fallen since the end of 2024, most producers are selling candy manufactured from the beans they bought during that peak. And costs in other sectors, such as energy and packaging, have also driven up costs.
But at the core of it, it’s the beans.
Skyrocketing prices of cocoa beans have driven up costs in the chocolate industry. Worldwide cocoa futures rose a whopping 178% in 2024 from a year prior, after a 61% increase in 2023, according to FactSet. The problem traces back to Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which together produce 60% of the world’s cocoa and have been slammed by poor harvests due to climate change.
Though cocoa futures plummeted 46% so far this year, customers are seeing the higher prices now because producers are making chocolate out of those pricey beans harvested in 2024, along with tariffs and inflation costs. And cocoa prices are still way above what they were in 2022.
Groundwork Collaborative found that prices for Hershey’s variety packs rose 22% since last year, Mars variety packs (which contain Milky Way, M&Ms, Three Musketeers and Skittles) rose 12% and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups rose 8%. Even gummies have faced higher prices-the Mondelez gummy candy variety pack, which includes Sour Patch Kids, have risen 9.4%.
In July, Hershey told retailers that it was raising prices for chocolate products by a percentage in the “lower double-digit range.” But the price increase did not include seasonal Halloween candy, the company said.
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