How indie chocolate brands are navigating record-high cocoa prices

According to executives at startup chocolate brands who spoke to Modern Retail, the smaller players have little leverage when it comes to negotiations. But there are ways to make the skyrocketing costs at least somewhat more manageable. The key, they say, is to strengthen supplier relationships to maintain ingredient quality and availability. Moreover, independent chocolate brands can find other operational efficiencies like bulk-purchasing raw material and locking in long-term rates from suppliers to offset these rising costs, while also keeping the product quality intact.

For emerging brands that don’t want to compromise on ingredients, this also marks a chance to diversify their product offerings and capture new customers that are both health- and price-conscious. 

Carly Schildhaus, the director of public affairs and communications at National Confectioners Association, said that, like many businesses, chocolate and candy companies are not immune to inflationary challenges. She added that, even as consumers remain concerned about the price of groceries and continue shifting their spending habits on food and beverage, sales are still healthy. Schildhaus pointed to the 2025 State of Treating report, which showed that confectionery sales topped $54 billion in 2024, with projections exceeding $70 billion by 2029.

“Chocolate remains the highest contributor to sales in the confectionery category, at $28.1 billion in sales in 2024 up from $25.9 billion in 2023,” she said. What’s more, 98% of people reported purchasing confectionery products in 2024.

Put together, this only creates a greater urgency for chocolate brands to figure out what to do about rising cocoa prices.

Building strong partnerships with farms

Jean Thompson is the owner and CEO of Maeve, a chocolate business that has been around for about 35 years and recently rebranded from Seattle Chocolate. When cacao bean rates began exploding last year, Thompson said the rate was $3,000 per metric ton. Now, “It has been stubbornly stuck at about $10,000 [per metric ton], despite the fine chocolate pundits saying it was going to settle at about $6,000,” Thompson said. 

This couldn’t have come at a worse time for Maeve, as the company had been working on rebranding for three years. The company rebranded from Seattle Chocolate in the hopes of reaching a wider national audience, and it settled on Maeve — named after a Celtic goddess — to symbolize the fact that it’s female-owned. Maeve has tried to respond to the volatility by deepening relationships with some of its key suppliers.

For years, the company was purchasing chocolate from a Belgian supplier, and it’s still doing so for Maeve’s milk chocolate. However, Thompson said for the past two years, the brand has gradually begun working directly with cacao bean farmers to source the raw ingredients for its dark chocolate. “We’re now getting flavored cacao beans from different sources, like the Dominican Republic, Peru, Ecuador and Ghana,” Thompson said. “Because if one of them goes belly up or increases rates due to bigger problems like disease or climate change, you’re screwed.” In 2024, the brand was also having trouble even sourcing coco butter, because it was nearly five times the typical price. “We ended up buying beans and having them processed for the cocoa butter,” Thompson said, because it was cheaper this way. “We still have, like, $300,000 worth of cocoa powder.” 

However, Thompson added that Maeve didn’t want to make too drastic of a pivot and has tried to find other ways to support its main supplier in Ghana.

The company has set up a program that contributes 10% of net profits to reinvest in the local cocoa co-op Three Mountains Cocoa, which supplies Maeve. This is done in collaboration with an NGO called Rikolto, along with backing from the Belgian government. Some of the initiatives include installing wells for fresh water supply and planting seedling nurseries to replace cocoa trees and other crops to diversify the farmers’ revenue. Thompson said these types of initiatives help strengthen small brands’ relationships with overseas cocoa suppliers. “We’re trying to do everything we can so that they can have good, healthy lives and stay in farming,” she said.

Leveraging the moment to promote products 

Some brands are approaching high cocoa costs by getting creative with their offerings. 

Colin Flood, vp of digital marketing at Unreal Snacks, said the challenge for better-for-you brands is that costs can’t be controlled by using fillers and reducing cocoa quantities in recipes. 

“Even as cocoa prices rise, we refuse to cut corners with fillers or fake alternatives,” he said, adding that the brand uses fair trade certified chocolate. Instead, the brand is using this as an opportunity to position its products to price- and health-conscious customers who are cutting back on pure chocolate products.  

Unreal has been expanding into adjacent categories such as chocolate-covered coconut bars, nougat bars, and its latest, chocolate-dipped pretzels and almonds, which overall require less chocolate. “These provide a great option that’s chocolate-covered instead of chocolate-filled,” Flood said. These products can meet the growing demand for better-for-you snacks, he explained, “while also being well-suited to today’s cocoa landscape.” 

But it’s not just chocolate bar brands being impacted. Snack and dessert categories that rely on chocolate are also feeling the ripple effect.  

Lindsay Hancock, founder of the clean cookie mix brand My Better Batch, said cocoa prices skyrocketed just as the brand was preparing to launch in April 2024. Leading up to that, the My Better Batch team was still finalizing recipes and ingredients for the brand’s chocolate chunk and double chocolate chip mixes, which promise to be loaded with premium chocolate. 

“Launching is expensive,” she said. She added that, at the time, the brand had already settled on its launch batch recipes and had to pay current cocoa market rates. “It is not advantageous for a company of my size, with the inability to use sales history as a predictor of future, to contract and ‘lock in rates’ at this point,” Hancock said. 

And as a young brand running relatively low quantities while trying to expand its distribution, Hancock said My Better Batch has little leverage at this stage. As such, the brand has to be intentional with every decision, including closely watching the costs of packaging, supplies and production expenses. “We have been able to seek some savings to offset our rise in ingredient costs by buying packaging in larger volumes. It’s not a big savings, but every penny counts,” Hancock said.

Building strong relationships across the supply chain is also crucial while navigating high cocoa prices. “We work closely with our co-manufacturer to ensure we’re making smart decisions around production size and efficiency,” she said. “It’s all about finding the right balance so we can grow sustainably without cutting corners.”

“I lean on our suppliers to help educate me on all aspects of cost drivers, including the market conditions, so we can make informed decisions,” she said. By fostering these relationships, Hancock said the young company is able to better navigate pricing, supply chain efficiencies and long-term planning. 

“While no one is immune to rising costs, having trusted supplier partnerships allows us to navigate challenges strategically and position My Better Batch in the best way possible for the future. While we don’t anticipate relief in the near future, we believe at some point we’ll see costs stabilize,” Hancock said.