'Wholesalers are demanding pre-payment': Cork chocolatier warns of expensive Easter eggs
Rosemary Daly of the Chocolate Shop in the English Market. Pictures: Larry Cummins
As Easter approaches, consumers may be left with a bitter aftertaste, as supply issues and rising costs put a strain on the world’s cocoa industry, impacting the selection and prices appearing on supermarket shelves.
Global cocoa costs have soared to record highs in recent months, resulting from poor harvests in West Africa, worsening weather conditions, and supply chain disruptions.
With prices peaking at more than $10,500 per tonne at the beginning of this year, a far cry from just $2,300 just two years ago, Irish retailers are feeling the squeeze, with both supply shortages and rising prices putting a strain on business.
“A lot of my suppliers have decided to shut,” says Rosemary Daly, who runs the Chocolate Shop in Cork’s English Market.
Ms Daly, who opened the business 25 years ago, says her supply has been severely disrupted by the ongoing crisis, which is impacting both small retailers and big companies alike.
“I have wholesalers now demanding pre-orders and pre-payment for chocolate orders,” Ms Daly told the .
“This is not the norm.”
Data from market research company Kantar shows Irish consumers spent a mammoth €24.6m on Easter eggs last year, which was an additional €9.3m compared to 2023.
However, Irish retailers are reporting double-digit rises in prices for chocolate products, far above the current inflation rate, which hovers below 2%.
Chocolate giant Mondelez, which owns several chocolate brands, including Cadbury, Toblerone and Milka, is also facing challenges, with supply issues and input cost hikes leading to a rise in prices.
“We understand the economic pressures that consumers continue to face, and raising prices is a last resort for our business,” a spokesperson for Mondelez told the Irish .
“As a food producer, we are continuing to experience significantly higher input costs across our supply chain, with ingredients such as cocoa and dairy, which are widely used in our products, costing far more than they have done previously. Other costs like energy and transport also remain high.
“This means our products continue to be much more expensive to make and while we have absorbed these costs where possible, we still face considerable challenges.”
Mondelez added these challenges had led to the company increasing prices across its range.
Rival Nestlé, which makes KitKat, Aero and Smarties among other popular chocolate brands, also confirmed price hikes across its product range: “Like every manufacturer, we have seen significant increases in the cost of cocoa, making it much more expensive to manufacture our products.
“As always, we continue to be more efficient and absorb increasing costs where possible. To maintain the same high quality and delicious products, it has sometimes been necessary to make adjustments to the price of some of our products."
For Ms Daly, small retailers like her are faced with even further volatility, with bigger companies able to hedge cocoa prices ahead of time, limiting their exposure to rising prices.
"Businesses like mine are also facing increases in more general business costs, from minimum wage hikes and energy costs, so this added pressure is just compounding the issue,” she says.
With Easter just around the corner, Ms Daly is trying to absorb costs as much as she can.
“I have always tried to keep it fair. But there is only so much I can cover on my own.”
Ireland’s chocolate industry surged during the pandemic, with covid-induced lockdowns leading to a major rise in smaller Irish success stories.
In 2023, Gráinne Mullins of the popular Grá Chocolates was named one of Forbes' 30 under 30 following the success of her business, which she founded during the pandemic.
Temptation Chocolates, founded by identical twin sisters Kate and Ruth O’Hara, is another similar success story. Their business, founded during one of the covid lockdowns, continues to go from strength to strength.
For smaller and less established businesses, however, the current crisis may be a difficult storm to weather, with Ms Daly anticipating a reshifting of the sector as a result.
“The chocolate industry is in flux right now,” she says.
“We’ve really seen the sector grow in Ireland, with new producers and sellers entering the market since the pandemic, even as far back as around 2016.
"Bean-to-bar chocolate was made very accessible, which did lead to slight overcrowding in the market. I think this current crisis may act as an adjustment period for the sector.”
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