2024-03-05 22:06:18
The Zurich chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli will increase its prices again in 2024 and 2025 to cope with the surge in cocoa prices, after assets already increased by 10.1% on average last year.
The group, which published its annual results on Tuesday, saw the bill for its raw materials soar with cocoa prices, which are pushed to new heights due to a production deficit linked to heavy rains which damaged the crops and pod disease.
At the end of February, a tonne of cocoa exceeded $6,500 in New York, an increase of more than 150% since January 2023, and came close to 6,000 pounds sterling in London, an increase of more than 170% since the start of the period. ‘past year.
5% increase expected in 2024
The chocolatier therefore warned that it would have to negotiate additional price increases in 2024 and 2025 “if cocoa prices remain at this level”. For 2024, the group is counting on a “mid-single digit” increase of around 5%, declared its managing director Adalbert Lechner during a press conference.
According to calculations by Patrik Schwendimann, analyst at Zurich Cantonal Bank, the group would need to raise its prices “around 12%” for 2025 if prices remain at this level, “which would risk putting pressure on volumes”.
“We hope that the increase will be significantly lower than that”, however declared the boss of Lindt & Sprüngli, without corroborating this estimate, the group wanting to remain “cautious” on price increases, because “we know that consumers are sensitive to it.
For 2025, “we will have to monitor the evolution of cocoa prices” and make a decision “by the middle of the year”, further clarified Adalbert Lechner.
A growing profit
Last year, the Swiss chocolatier published a net profit better than expected, up 17.9% compared to the previous year, at 671.4 million francs, thanks in particular to more advantageous taxation. It has also benefited from the resumption of tourism, its chocolates often being sold in airport duty-free shops.
“Consumers tightened their belts” last year, admitted Adalbert Lechner, but the so-called “premium” segment, which corresponds to the high-end fraction of chocolate sold in supermarkets, “resisted well,” according to him.
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