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Tony’s Chocolonely is known for its chunky 180g bars and innovative flavours, and has more than 20 partners, including Waitrose, who use the firm’s cocoa bean sourcing model for their own-brand chocolate bars.
The company has said that despite raising prices in response to rising cocoa costs, it will not cut bar size to offset expenses.
It comes as some chocolate companies, such as Galaxy KitKat, Penguin, Quality Street and Freddo, have made changes in recent years, from reducing the quantity of chocolate in a multipack to cutting the size of individual chocolate bars.
Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate won’t shrink amid cost rises
Douglas Lamont, chief executive, said: “It was such a big economic shock in terms of the change; when your core commodity, the thing that makes up 50% of your cost, goes up five times, you have to respond and that has to feed through into consumer prices.”
He added: “We, and everybody else, have put our price up on the shelf.”
The price rises have been driven by poor harvests in West Africa.
Mr Lamont said the company would not follow the growing ‘shrinkflation’ trend in the chocolate industry, where brands reduce product size to manage costs.
He said the brand was not going to “take the cost-saving opportunity” of reducing the size of its chocolate bars and selling it for the same price.
He said: “Yes, we’ve introduced different sized bars at different prices, but our big chunky 180 gram bar, which is typically bigger than most products on shelf and therefore a lot more expensive, we’re not going to downsize that to hit a certain price point.”
The company, based in the Netherlands, is focused on ethically sourcing cocoa, paying farmers a higher price, and reducing exploitation in its supply chains.
Mr Lamont said: “The industry has systematically underinvested in the farmers in West Africa which exacerbated the cocoa crisis, and that change needs to happen to limit the damage when the next climate shock hits, which it will.
“There’s a moral argument around it, but there’s also a very clear economic argument now.”
UK supermarkets suffering from fruit and vegetable shortages
Poor harvests in West Africa are not the only effect the country is having on UK supermarkets.
Fruit and vegetable shortages have been reported at the likes of Lidl, Asda, and Tesco due to heavy rainfall in key growing areas in southern Europe and North Africa.
Analysis by The Grocer showed strawberries in particular have been in short supply, especially in Tesco, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, and Asda.
Raspberries, avocados and peppers have also reportedly been low in several UK supermarkets, too.
Retail expert and Vypr founder Ben Davies, however, said there was “nothing to be concerned about in terms of food security or general shortages”.
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He explained: “What it means is that some products are not readily available, but there is still plenty of other food.
“It may mean there are slightly higher prices temporarily as supermarkets won’t be able to run volume promotions on items that are in short supply.
“The supermarket buying teams will be looking at other options for sourcing their fruit and veg if they need to, and everyone will be working very hard to restore the shelves to normal levels.”
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