By Nick Newling and Jessica Yun
Visitors to chocolatier Koko Black are poring over glass cabinets full of truffles, examining blocks or Easter eggs of varying sizes, flavours and designs, and walking away with carefully gift-wrapped packages. There seems to be little trace of cost-of-living pressures or the surging – sometimes sixfold – cocoa prices.
Koko Black chief Rory Gration in the chocolate company’s new Chadstone store, which had queues lining up from 6am on its opening day.Credit: SMH/Age
“We’re seeing a bit of a flight to quality over quantity and people still wanting to experience beautiful chocolate, enjoy those moments, treat themselves,” Koko Black chief executive Rory Gration said.
“Cocoa prices are the headline, and the ability to pass that on or absorb it has always been a big challenge,” he said. “We’re able to make sure that we only pass on what we need to and look at other ways of optimising our offer or focusing on different areas.”
It’s a different picture in the aisles of major supermarkets, where Easter egg prices this year are soaring.
Cadbury’s hollow hunting eggs are 8 per cent smaller this year, according to Choice.Credit: Janie Barrett
Cadbury’s annual offerings are up 20 per cent on average this year. A 250 gram Easter bunny will cost you $12 this year, up from $10 in 2024. 150 gram bunnies, medium gift boxes and small bags of eggs have increased in price between 19 per cent and 21 per cent.
Shrinkflation has been amplified this year – product weight has gone down, and prices have stayed the same, or gone up in some instances. Data from consumer advocacy group Choice found that per gram, some chocolate had undergone 33 per cent price increases.
A pack of 22 hollow Cadbury Easter eggs is 8 per cent smaller this year but 20 per cent more expensive, the consumer advocacy group found. Cadbury’s 400 gram chocolate egg sold for $20 last year; this year’s product is the same price but has shrunk to 340 grams.
A Cadbury spokesperson said retail price rises were the result of “a worldwide cocoa shortage” and that the company had “made some difficult decisions regarding Easter pack sizes and pricing”.
A 300 gram bag of solid Easter eggs from Aldi’s Dairy Fine is still $5.99 but has dropped in weight by 100 grams, representing a 25 per cent increase in cost per gram.
The reason for this year’s price increases has fallen squarely on the commodity price of cocoa, which peaked in January at $US11,081 ($18,526) a tonne, up 307 per cent over five years. Consecutive seasons of flood and drought in West Africa – home to 70 per cent of global cocoa production – have resulted in a 14 per cent fall in output.
A farmer cuts down cocoa pods from a tree on his farm in Azaguie, Ivory Coast. Credit: Bloomberg
Chris Jahnke, the chair of the industry group Cacao and Chocolate of Australian Origin, said the global industry’s reliance on the Ivory Coast and Ghana’s cocoa production meant that if “West Africa sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”.
“Some of the plantations have very old trees that are reaching the end of their productive life, plus you have other farmers who are moving away from cacao into things like rubber and other tropical plants,” said Jahnke.
Most global cocoa farming takes place in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which have both been hit with US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs – 21 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
“Prices for cacao – even once, and if some of these issues are dealt with in West Africa – are unlikely to ever go down to the previous very, very low, unsustainable, uneconomic prices that the farmers in West Africa were being paid,” said Jahnke.
The rapid rise in cacao commodity prices has, according to Jahnke, made “premium” domestic chocolate – farmed on small plantations in Far North Queensland – more competitive. “People are starting to recognise that not all chocolate is the same.”
However, Koko Black’s prices haven’t been immune, with Gration saying they have kept increases to “low single digits”.
Gration said the artisanal chocolate brand, which recently acquired Chocolatier Australia and its 5800-square-metre manufacturing facility, will help it quadruple output and reduce some production costs.
“The big focus of the business has been around: how do we drive overall efficiency? Cocoa’s an input cost, but how do we make sure our manufacturing is as efficient as it can be? How do we optimise other costs throughout the organisation?” he said.
“Some lazy manufacturer might just pass it on. We’re looking at ourselves internally first [on] how we absorb [it].”
Gration said he had found customers who walk into and experience Koko Black’s retail stores were less likely to be sensitive to price increases. “We’re still experiencing volume growth or unit growth,” he said. One in every two Koko Black sales are a gift.
“People aren’t just coming to buy a bit of chocolate. They’re coming for that cocoa experience,” he said. “We’re not a half-price block of chocolate or half-price supermarket brand.”
Easter 2025: By the numbers
- Each Australian eats about 5.5 kilograms of chocolate a year, less than half as much as world leader Switzerland, where residents consume 11.8 kilograms a year.
- Cadbury produced 430 million Easter eggs and 14 million Easter bunnies.
- Koko Black made 1.3 million Easter eggs and 100,000 Easter bunnies.
- Haigh’s processed 100 tonnes of chocolate for this season, making four million Easter eggs and 140,000 Easter bilbies.
- Chocolate consumption has fallen 5.7 per cent domestically over the past five years.
Michael Whitehead, head of agribusiness insights at ANZ, said while it was unlikely cocoa would return to pre-2023 prices, it was possible that Easter chocolate prices could return to form next year.
“Prices [this year] are probably as high as you could charge in a time when people are watching household budgets. Will they get much higher? Not necessarily, no.”
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