\u201cA lot of my colleagues, and including us, we try to kind of absorb some of the cost because a four times the price increase is just not feasible,\u201d he told CityNews.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were really on a roller coaster. It hit us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandra Abballe-Domanico, the owner of Vaughan-based Succulent Chocolates and Sweets \u2014 known for hand-painted bonbons and other specialty items, said she\u2019s also encountered major price hikes from her suppliers. Earlier in 2026, she said she paid nearly $27 a kilogram for dark chocolate \u2014 up from around $9 in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a significant challenge, absolutely, because it hasn\u2019t just been cacao and chocolate that has increased. It has been everything that goes into chocolate, especially the cream, the butter, the raw materials and even the packaging has increased,\u201d Abballe-Domanico told CityNews.<\/p>\n
Compounding the issues facing chocolate companies, Abballe-Domanico and Stubbe said they\u2019ve started to see changing customer patterns amid current economic challenges. <\/p>\n
\u201cAffordability in Canada right now is not great. We know that they\u2019re increasing prices at the grocery store, so they\u2019re a little bit more hesitant to spend a larger amount on a luxury item,\u201d Abballe-Domanico said, outlining a shift to smaller product quantities.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than (a box of) 24 (chocolates), they go for a box of 18 or a box of 12. We haven\u2019t seen consumers really like not buying chocolate at all, and, in the case of our business, we are luxury, but we are an affordable luxury,\u201d Stubbe said.<\/p>\n
David Johnston, a professor with York University\u2019s Schulich School of Business and the director of the George Weston Ltd. Centre for Sustainable Supply Chains, said the supply chain of raw chocolate ingredients has been affected by climate change and environmental issues like crop disease in abundant parts of Africa.<\/p>\n
The price spike in 2024 also affected commercial chocolate companies eager to lock up supplies, leading to increased prices for consumers. Experts said large-scale companies ink deals to buy ingredients up to 18 months ahead of time. They said those locked-in costs have been more noticeable in recent months through price increases or product reformulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s such an important part of their product that determines its final price and their profitability, they try to tie up those supplies as early as possible, and they try to hedge against the possibility that there might be a disruption in supply,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why you\u2019re having crop failures in places where they\u2019re growing cacao beans is because [there are] changes in volatility in the climate: too dry, too wet, and that encourages disease.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, international farmers saw better-than-expected yields thanks to improving weather conditions after the environmental issues experienced in 2024.<\/p>\n
Kyle Wilson, the co-owner of Soul Chocolate, an east-end Toronto business that makes chocolate products from scratch using premium raw ingredients sourced from South America and Africa, said he has developed shorter lead-time cycles with his suppliers.<\/p>\n
He said that gives smaller businesses like his a bit of an advantage in adapting pricing and practices more quickly. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been making chocolate for 10 years, so I think we\u2019ve kind of passed that really critical point of success or failure, but \u2026 every year presents its own challenges,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur pricing has actually dropped a little bit because the market, the commodity market, at this moment actually went from $12,000 a tonne back down to $3,000 a tonne, so it\u2019s gone back down to where it\u2019s kind of been sitting for years to our advantage.\u201d <\/p>\n
Johnston said the situation in Iran, along with wider geopolitical and environmental issues, reinforces the need for bolstering supply chains.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be mindful about where we source those materials and how stable they are, and what we can do as a nation and as an economy to stabilize those sources because it\u2019s in our self-interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, with new concerns about how spikes in fuel prices will affect goods, all three business owners CityNews spoke with had a shared message to customers in the Greater Toronto Area: support is needed as much as ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmall chocolatiers have been riding this wave and, quite frankly, struggling for the past few years on how to be able to continue to bring good quality chocolate into the community, and without our local shoppers, we wouldn\u2019t be able to do that. So thank you to the people for shopping local,\u201d Abballe-Domanico said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get better product from your local butcher than what you get at the grocery store, and chocolate is no different, Stubbe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything in the food industry right now, I think, is having a bit more of a challenging time, so if you can focus a little more locally I think that\u2019s the best,\u201d Wilson added.<\/p>\n
With files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tSandra Abballe-Domanico, the owner of Succulent Chocolates and Sweets Inc. in Vaughan, adds dark chocolate chips to melted chocolate. CITYNEWS \/ Nick Westoll<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As many look to stock up on Easter chocolate, it comes as the major challenges facing many smaller…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":{"0":"post-581683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}