Why Halloween candy is getting more expensive and less chocolate-y – CNN Business
Business• 4 min read
Why Halloween candy is getting more expensive and less chocolate-y
By Ramishah Maruf and Matt Egan
Updated 44 min ago
Halloween candy is displayed inside a pumpkin themed treat bucket in Tiskilwa, Illinois, in 2020.Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / Getty Images.
New York — Even the joy of Halloween will cost more this year, with less chocolate than in years past.
Expect more packages of tangy gummies, riding off a meteoric high last year. Your kid’s trick-or-treat bag may be filled with a lot of pumpkin-spice-filled-anything. And like last year, cocoa bean industry experts are expecting high price tags to be passed down to consumers.
Andwith high cocoa prices, every producer from specialty chocolate makers to candy giants are changing up how they sell their treats. For consumers, this could mean less chocolate per package, higher prices and less cocoa content – meaning less chocolate-y chocolate – compared to before.
Overall, candy is 10.8% more expensive this Halloween season than last year,according to an analysis of NielsenIQ data conducted by progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative and shared first with CNN. That’s nearly quadruple the overall rate of inflation.
In 2024, Halloween candy prices only rose 2.1%, the analysis found.
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 co-owner receives Venezuelan cacao beans in Raleigh, North Carolina, in July. Courtesy Escazú Chocolates.Pistachio ghosts and blood orange pistachio chocolate confections at Escazú Chocolates. Courtesy Escazú Chocolates
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.
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 economist 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%.
A family shops for Halloween candy at a Walmart Supercenter on October 16, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Brandon Bell / Getty Images
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.
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