Hershey says it is hiking chocolate prices

Your Kit Kat bar and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are officially getting pricier. Hershey told its retail partners it is raising prices by a percentage in the “lower double-digit range” over what its chocolate products cost over the past couple years, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNN. The culprit: high cocoa prices. Cocoa futures rose a whopping 178% in 2024 after a 61% increase in 2023, according to data from FactSet. That’s because Ghana and Ivory Coast account for almost 60% of the world’s cocoa production, and the region has been hit by poor harvests due to weather exacerbated by climate change.