Skylder du et påskeæg? Så bliver det dyrere end sidste år. Siden nytår har prisen på kakao taget et ordentligt dyk, men det kan ikke ses på hylderne i supermarkedet, lyder det fra eksperter.
Mange af verdens kakao – den vigtigste ingrediens i chokolade – kommer fra to lande i Vestafrika, nemlig Elfenbenskysten og Ghana. Læs opOrdbogTekstAf Telma Svangtun Eriksen
If you go down to the supermarket, the chocolate has risen by almost three percent since last year’s time. Or so says consumer economist at Sydbank, Ann Lehmann Erichsen. Raw material price of cocoa has fallen by nearly 30% since New Year, according to the latest price survey from International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), which is a union of several cocoa-producing countries.
However, consumers should not expect the price drop to be reflected on the shelves. So says Ann Lehmann Erichsen. – We will have to wait until next Easter to find out if our Easter eggs are falling in price.
Easter eggs more expensive
In recent years, raw material prices for cocoa have otherwise been soaring, but since New Year, the price of that lovely brown stuff has fallen. In stores, however, things look different, explains Ann Lehmann Erichsen.
– If you go down to the supermarket, chocolate has risen by almost three percent since last year’s time, she says.
This shows the latest consumer goods index from Statistics Denmark, which comes out once a month.
Chocolate in shopping cart
There are several consumers who have noticed that it has become more expensive to put chocolate on their shopping lists. Among others, Hanne Fredsted Johannesen from Sønderborg, who has not yet bought this year’s Easter eggs for the grandkids. – I would have done it yesterday, but then I thought maybe something had happened. So I’m waiting a bit, she says.
Hanne Fredsted Johannesen has also noticed that coffee is getting more expensive. She also thought that raw material prices for cocoa were rising due to increasing prices in supermarkets. – It surprises me that they’ve fallen. I haven’t quite caught up.
One of the reasons for the falling cocoa price is that cocoa farmers anticipate a safer harvest this year. That’s what senior advisor Henning Otte Hansen at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen says.
Supermarkets do not see the price drop
Neither Coop nor Salling Group can see the falling prices among their suppliers.
I don’t think we’ll get a significant price reduction on chocolate in the coming years, Henning Otte Hansen, senior advisor at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen. – It’s not us who score on Easter eggs. Chocolate producers do not give us price drops to expect, it says in a written response from Coop, which among other things operates supermarkets.
Salling Group explains that prices tend to be regulated by longer-term contracts with suppliers, so prices are not adjusted monthly. – So, it is correct that the raw material price of cocoa has fallen from January to March, but we have not yet seen this development in the prices we pay our suppliers, it says from Salling Group.
Adjustment of price
It’s a long way from unusual for raw material prices and store price signals not to match. So says Henning Otte Hansen, senior advisor at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen.
We will have to wait until next Easter to find out if our Easter eggs are falling in price.