The Spookiest Day of the Year Saved Its Biggest Scare for the Chocolate Biz

Forget about the Frankensteins straight out of Shelley or the Shrunken Head Bobs from “Beetlejuice.” 

The most spine-chilling monster this Halloween is inflation. The cost of manufacturing chocolate and confectionery from cocoa has risen a terrifying 45% this year, according to the Producer Price Index. 

A Nightmare on Main Street

As consumers flee sinister price hikes this year, Halloween spending in the US will fall to $11.6 billion after a record $12.2 billion in 2023, according to a forecast by the National Retail Federation.

Chocolate has been vanishing from store shelves like a ghost. “Chocolate candy, there’s just not as many items per retailer on shelf,” Dan Sadler, a confection analyst at Circana, told Reuters. “We’re seeing double-digit increases in non-chocolate items.” That could lead to a few jump scares next earnings season:

• TD Cowen analysts said this week that NielsenIQ data shows candy sales down 1.6% in the four weeks leading up to Oct. 19. The “rather weak Halloween” could bury chocolate heavyweight Hershey’s earnings — the company already went Michael Myers on forecasts in August, slashing its sales growth guidance to 2% from the range of 2% to 3%.
• The Wall Street Journal noted Wednesday that sugar candies (namely gummies) are rising to take chocolate’s place; they have seen sales rise 74% since 2020, according to data from Euromonitor. That outpaces the 38% chocolate sales increase.

Here’s a Treat: It’s not all ghastly news for chocolate fans: Cocoa futures trading on the Intercontinental Exchange rose 1.3% to $7,361 per metric ton Wednesday. That’s a massive drop from June, when prices topped $10,000 per metric ton for the second time this year amid crop concerns.