Lindt chocolate: from 2 to 5.45 euros a pound in two years

Lindt chocolate at 5.45 euros a pound: cocoa is falling, the price isn't

How much more expensive can a bar of chocolate get in two years? The answer, on the Lindt shelf, is damning: 5.45 euros a pound –453 grams– compared with 2 euros two years ago. More than double, even though the drop in cocoa prices at source has never made it to the store shelf.

The official explanation for the price hike, the cost of cocoa, doesn't hold water. In the commodities market, the bean has corrected after its bullish peak, and yet the consumer price has stayed frozen. Some blame speculation with futures contracts: a handful of buyers with a dominant position set the price, not through real supply and demand, but through rent extraction.

The olive oil pattern repeats itself

The analogy with olive oil is no coincidence. There too, prices soared on speculative moves and then failed to fall just as quickly. In cocoa, the arguments about falling production, pests or rising demand don't hold up: what we have is a financialized system where profit comes from abusing a dominant position over the product.

Alternatives to expensive chocolate?

Private-label brands, such as Lidl's 85% chocolate, keep prices reasonable and quality acceptable, while Lindt, Nestlé or Milka rely more on the brand than the product. Lindt chocolates reach 40 euros a kilo, a luxury for something that, according to more than one analysis, isn't even the best chocolate on the market.

If anyone lost out to the speculation, it wasn't the manufacturer, but the consumer. And cocoa, meanwhile, keeps falling. Someone should ask Lindt where the margin is.