Grace WoodBBC News, Yorkshire
BBCChocolatiers have said they are having to reduce the quantity of chocolate in their products and raise prices after a global hike in the price of cocoa and butter.
Food inflation hit 4.2% in the year to August, up from 4% in July, according to the British Retail Consortium, with chocolate and butter driving up prices.
William Whitaker, owner of Whitakers Chocolates in Skipton, said the company had begun focusing on products with a lower chocolate percentage to combat rises.
He said: “We’ve been investing in products where we can use chocolate as a covering on ginger or Brazils, rather than solid chocolates.”
He added: “Our prices have gone up but our sales have gone down 20% in the last 12 months because there’s only so much certain markets can pay for a certain product.”
Whitakers has been making and selling chocolate since 1889. Earlier this year it was purchased by Bramble Foods Group, which Mr Whitaker said had protected the business.
“We can’t just stay still. We’ve had to join a bigger company with deeper pockets,” he said.
“By joining forces we’ve got a wider range of products in a wider market.”
Tom Holder, a spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium, said the organisation was expecting food inflation to reach 6% by the end of the year.
He said: “The global price of cocoa as a raw product has risen by about five-fold over the last 18 months to an extremely high point at which retailers are being forced to pass on some these extra costs to consumers.
“Cocoa has been subject to some challenging conditions – high demand in that tight supply has created a global storm that has seen global prices rise significantly, which has ended up being passed along to consumers here in the UK.”
Mr Whittaker added: “Since 2022, a couple of years after Covid – there’s been three crop failures in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. That’s pushed up the demand of the chocolate when the supplies have not been available.
“We’re a small company but we buy 1,000 tonnes of chocolate. And the price of chocolate has risen to £3,000 a tonne over those three years so that’s £3m. It’s an awful lot.”
At Blacker Hall Farm near Wakefield, Helen Bramley is the owner of Chox, a luxury handmade chocolate brand.
She said the price of the 10kg bags of cocoa she buys had risen from £55 to £155 in the four years she has been running the business.
“We’re a luxury brand, so we believe in the brand. We could shop around for a cheaper chocolate but we’re not prepared to do that.
“We used to sell a bar for £3.25, we now sell it for £3.95 so we’ve absorbed a lot of the cost because while we believe in luxury, we believe in affordability too,” she said.
She said larger companies had been able to survive the crisis better, because they could bulk buy and they could reduce the amount of chocolate in products.
“They are bulk buying, but I believe they’re starting to use compounds – so chocolate with other things added to reduce the cost of the chocolate,” she said.
“So when they’re making things in mass, there are alternatives for them to use. For us, it’s not viable, the taste would be massively compromised.”
Chocolate sculptor Ashley McCarthy, who is based at Ye Olde Sun Inn near Tadcaster, said he had taken “a massive hit” over the last 18 months.
“The big boys get the monopoly. They have the buying power and they will take the vast proportion and leave what’s left for the small boys like myself.
“We’re at the bottom of the pile so we have to pay the premium,” he said.