Surging cost of cocoa leads UK shoppers to shell out more for smaller Easter eggs
Shoppers are shelling out for smaller eggs this Easter as shrinkflation takes a bite out of the favourite seasonal treat.
The price of eggs made by big names including Cadbury, Mars and Terry's have risen by as much as 50% in some cases while some have also shrunk in size, according to research by consumer champion Which?. When pack sizes are reduced and prices stay the same, or even go up, it is often dubbed 'shrinkflation'.
While official figures published on Wednesday showed inflation slowing to 2.8% in February, a breakdown of the headline figure shows food prices rose 3.3%. While price drops for milk, cheese and eggs brought some relief for shoppers, the cost of chocolate raced higher, up by a massive 16.5%.
Chocolate has been getting more expensive for several years due to poor harvests in west Africa, in particular Ghana and Ivory Coast, where more than half of the world's cocoa beans are harvested.
While confectionery firms say they have swallowed some of the cocoa price hit, the magnitude of the increase has resulted in higher prices on supermarket shelves. Looking at the weight of the eggs on sale, Which? found that the cost of some Easter eggs had increased by more than 50% a 100g compared with last year.
At Lidl an 80g pouch of Terry's Chocolate Orange mini eggs was 99p in the run-up to Easter in 2024. However in 2025, it was not only more expensive, at £1.35, it had also shrunk to 70g. This equates to a rise of 56% per 100g. The bags on sale in other supermarkets had also shrunk but the price rise per 100g was less – 51% at Asda, 37% at Sainsbury's and 14% at Tesco.
At Morrisons, Which? found a Cadbury Creme Egg 5 Pack Mixed Chocolate Box 200g had risen from £2.62 in the run-up to Easter 2024 to £4 this year. This worked out as a 53% price increase per 100g year on year, although the pack had stayed the same size.
At Tesco, Which? found a Twix white chocolate Easter egg had increased from £5 to £6 in the run-up to Easter year on year, and had also shrunk from 316g to 258g, meaning the unit price (per 100g) had gone up by 47%.
At Morrisons, Nestlé's KitKat Chunky milk chocolate Easter egg stayed at the same price in the run-up to Easter year on year at £1.50 but reduced in size from 129g to 110g, making it 17% more expensive per 100g.
With shoppers getting less bang for their buck, Reena Sewraz, the senior money and shopping editor at Which?, said: 'If you don't want to pay more for less, it is worth shopping around,' and to be sure to compare the price per gram.
Amber Sawyer, an analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said that for many commodities rising food inflation 'bears the fingerprints of climate change'. 'Chocolate price inflation is up from 14.1% last month to 16.5% this month. West Africa has been pummelled by climate impacts since 2023, with prices surging 400% last year,' she said.
Mars Wrigley said that, due to rising manufacturing costs, it had adjusted some of its product sizes to minimise changes to its list price.
Nestlé said significant increases in the cost of cocoa had made it much more expensive to manufacture its products and it has 'sometimes been necessary to make adjustments to the price or weight of some of our products'.
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