The Mound - #8 - The Cost of Chocolate

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Thanks to the one-two punch of inflation and heavy rains across West Africa, the cost of chocolate is spiking higher than a birthday-boy’s blood sugar. All in all, cocoa prices have increased more than 40% these last 12 months - a time when across-the-board price-hikes have already “knee-capped discretionary spending for luxury items such as premium chocolate, meaning any price increase is fraught with danger.” And it seems chocolate is an especially fraught category as ABS researchers discovered in May that just a 1% increase in chocolate prices reduces consumption in Australia by 7.4%. 

The chocolatiers of this world need our help. If we don’t think of a way to increase productivity in the chocolate space, we might soon find ourselves living in a dystopian nightmare world in which the main course is proceeded by apple slices or - god forbid - white chocolate. 

Here’s how we fix it. 

Cadubry reduced the size of their family chocolate blocks from 200g to 180g in 2019 - and other brands / categories have followed suit in recent years, giving rise to the phenomenon of “shrinkflation” for some and false hopes of a second puberty to other, less fortunate EDM-writers. 

It’s a reasonable response - to shrink the product - but it’s a terrible, almost unbearable cliche, isn’t it? How very like us humans to encounter a problem and then to adapt the environment, to change everything but ourselves, to make a product of the world. This chocolate crisis, though, calls for a paradigm shift.

Sure, we could shrink chocolate… or, just maybe… we could grow the customer.

Chocolate is meant for sharing; its most astounding ability is to make a disparate group whole, to unite us in the consumption of a tasty fruit-n-nut. 

For the longest time, we’ve applied this magical quality of chocolate to families alone - as if they, the people who already live together, have any genuine need for unifying rituals. 

(I’m kidding, families. Calm down… Jesus.)

Imagine how much value could be realised if we, the consumers, treated this cost of living crisis like an actual crisis and started resorting to creative, community-based strategies. 

We’ll start off by inventing a new kind of chocolate super block - one that is specifically designed for split-purchase with strangers at the supermarket. In honour of the family block, we’ll call it Cadbury’s Block Party. 

So it’s one, over-sized product, sold closer to market price than today’s SKUs. Each of these oversized blocks has two barcodes on its back, so customer #1 and customer #2 can each scan and pay for their respective halves of the Block Party. Perforated packaging then allows for the two customers to meet in the carpark, to snap the block and then tear it clean in half. 

In stark opposition to the isolatory experience of supermarket shopping today, the Block Party could usher in a new age of community outreach - a lot of excuse-finding in the aisles, dropped keys and furtive glances at the strangers around.

“Say, what’s a slim fella like you doing in aisle 6? You lost, mate?”

“Oh no, I’m just on my way to the fresh produce...”

“Vegetables, yes. Good for the body.”

“Indeed.”

“Though I find the soul sometimes needs a break from things. Don’t you?”

“Oh, I really shouldn’t... My wife...”

“Come on… It’ll be our little secret.”

You’re welcome, Australia.