Chocolate money is one of the big casualties of Brexit and the rising cost of cocoa.
Expect the exchange rate to drop as the price of ingredients rises.
Sweet lovers will be hit by a double-whammy – smaller servings that cost the same as older, larger packets.
Expats shopping online for their favourites from home are already paying sweetflation.
The iconic Toblerone has shone the spotlight on how food producers are taking everyone for a ride with their secret downsizing.
Profit from customers
Manufacturers are continually looking at ways to turn extra profit from customers.
The Toblerone episode has revealed how they are doing it.
They are putting a little less chocolate, ice cream, fish or other product in the packet and selling for the same price. Only to try and fool customers, they keep the packet the same size, hoping they won’t notice it feels a little lighter.
Toblerone have spaced out their chocolate triangles, reducing the serving from 15 to 11. A bar that weighed 400 grams is now 360 grams.
The other culprits are too numerous to mention because they are nearly all at it.
- Juice brand Tropicana has siphoned 15% out of orange and raspberry juice
- McVitie’s dark chocolate digestives shrank by 10%
- Princes has stopped squeezing mackerel into tins like sardines by reducing the amount of fish in a portion
- Mars bars reduced in size from 58 grams to 51 grams in 2013
- The Christmas treat 1 kg Quality Street tin now weighs 850 grams
The rising price of cocoa on the world markets is blamed for much of the commotion.
Cocoa and palm oil prices rise
The price is up 26% year-on-year, and that’s compounded by more rises in recent years. The trading price is $2,500 a tonne.
Depending on where expats live, the price is also impacted by the local currency exchange rate with the US dollar. That’s where Brexit makes importing cocoa more expensive for British food companies and retailers.
Jack Skelly, senior analyst at market intelligence company Euromonitor warns shoppers should keep an eye on the price of chocolate ice cream, chocolate biscuits and other cocoa products in coming months.
He also explained the price of palm oil is also rising. The ingredient is used in many chocolate bars, cakes and biscuits.
