Why your Valentine's chocolates are so expensive
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Here is a love note from the global commodities market: Roses are red, violets are blue; cocoa prices are still crashing, but no chocolate bargains for you.
Why it matters: Few commodities have plummeted in price more than cocoa this year. The plunge extends a months-long drop from record high prices, a fall that is wreaking havoc on big cocoa exporters in West Africa.
- But don't expect to see any of that reflected in lower prices at the checkout line this year.
- "Valentine's Day 2026 is still feeling the aftershocks of the cocoa crisis," Francisco Martin-Rayo, CEO of Helios AI, a commodities prediction pricing platform, tells Axios.
By the numbers: Tight cocoa supply drove prices to record highs in recent years. Now, supply is loosening up, pushing prices lower.
- But the chocolate you'll find on the shelves now was manufactured with cocoa that was purchased at near record-high prices. Companies like Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury and Toblerone, increased prices multiple times to offset the higher cocoa costs.
- Cocoa prices most recently peaked at $10,000 per metric ton in May, well above an average of $2,500 to $3,000 that prevailed for much of the 2010s.
- The decline that followed has accelerated in recent weeks: Prices are down almost 30% over the past month alone.
Between the lines: Big food manufacturers hedge their exposure to price swings by locking in prices for delivery months ahead of time. Large chocolate makers are still getting cocoa above spot-market prices.
- That limits how much companies can benefit from the drop — and, in turn, how much relief they can pass on to consumers.
What they're saying: "The cocoa price has declined more than anybody would have expected," Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put told investors this week.
- "There's not a lot we can do anymore, but 2027 certainly will benefit from this."
Hershey raised consumer prices last year, though not enough to "cover our cocoa price inflation in 2026," CEO Kirk Tanner said on an earnings call last week.
- Like Mondelez, the company is "hedged above current [cocoa] market levels."
- Tanner, however, added that the deflationary momentum in cocoa markets — assuming it sticks — takes the "pressure down" to raise prices further in the future.
Yes, but: Cocoa prices are not the only factor influencing the price of your Valentine's Day chocolate.
- Hershey says it paid higher Trump-era tariffs on supplies still in its inventory. The administration exempted cocoa from tariffs in November, part of a broader push to address affordability concerns.
- Chocolate companies are also weighing the factors impacting the demand for sweets: weight-loss drugs and restrictions on government food benefits among them.
- Price fatigue may push companies to eventually cut costs. Mondelez, for one, said U.S. consumers are tightening spending — an outcome that might force it to ultimately adjust prices.
