Eye-watering chocolate costs coming. No wonder those eyebrows are dancing.

1319935 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:53:00 GMT

Cocoa is now at its highest price for 24 years and the premium brands, those that use the most ‘cocoa solid’ content, will inevitably have to pass those raw material costs on to the consumer first. This swings things favourably for Cadbury’s and Nestlé, as they tend to use less cocoa solid in mass-produced bars, so may be able to hold prices for longer. If you compare the cocoa solids content of Dairy Milk to say, a bar of Green and Black’s you can work out the relative strength of pure chocolate for yourself.

As belts tighten, even for the indulgent, can purity at a price overcome the celebration of a joyful moment expressed in Dairy Milk advertising? The kerfuffle over ‘shrinking’ chocolate sizes (where’s my last rolo gone?) at countline level indicates that when the British consumer thinks about chocolate a tiny bit more than the three seconds it takes to snap up a KitKat as you head out of the tube, manufacturers have to sit up and take notice. Mind you, I liked one succinct Yahoo answer on that question “it’s not the chocolate bars getting smaller, it’s the people getting bigger.” Let’s see how consumers react as wallets get smaller.

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Eye-watering chocolate costs coming. No wonder those eyebrows are dancing.