Price of chocolate skyrocketing in Switzerland

The price of chocolate is skyrocketing in Switzerland, with the cost of some products going up by as much as a third. Why is this happening, and how are supermarkets responding? 

Chocolate getting more and more expensive in Switzerland

Anyone who is a fan of a sweet chocolate treat now and then will have noticed that it’s become an increasingly costly habit. According to a report in Watson, the prices of Cailler and Lindt chocolate bars have gone up by more than a third in certain Swiss supermarkets. A 100-gram bar now costs as much as 3,80 Swiss francs.

The price increase is understandable when you see how the price of cocoa has developed over the last few years. According to Watson, the cost of cocoa peaked in April 2024, at around 12.200 US dollars per ton. Compare that to the price paid a year earlier: 3.200 US dollars per ton! 

Since 2024, the price has fluctuated enormously between around 6.800 and 12.000 US dollars per ton. Even at its lowest, this price is still twice as high as it was in 2023. On top of that, a spate of poor cocoa harvests in recent years (a result of climate change) means that the price is unlikely to ever return to pre-2023 levels. 

How are Swiss supermarkets responding to rising cocoa prices?

While some companies like Lindt and Cailler have shot up their prices to match the cost of cocoa, retailers like Coop and Migros are trying to delay or cushion some of the increase by pushing their own-brand chocolate bars, which currently retail for somewhere between 1,95 and 2,50 francs for 100 grams. 

"We try to limit price increases on our own brands as much as possible and bear some of the additional costs ourselves,” a Migros representative told Watson, but with commodity prices so high, they conceded that product prices might also soon change.