This woman was disappointed to see just how expensive Nestlé Toll House chocolate chips have gotten. Viewers say they’re not even worth it.
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Groceries have gotten incredibly expensive. For some goods, it made sense, given the rapid inflation costs. Manufacturers have been happy to increase prices and inflict shrinkflation on the general public but aren’t as eager to bring prices down.
But in this case, there’s a valid reason why prices are getting higher.
Woman calls out chocolate prices
Content creator Eva Elena shared the shocking thing she noticed at the grocery store. Her video now has over 132,000 views.
“I was in the mood for homemade chocolate chip cookies but then saw this,” Elena says.
To her surprise, Toll House chocolate chips (which are usually on the lower end of pricing compared to, say, Ghirardelli) were a whopping $7.
GloRilla singing “Bad Bih 4 Ya” is all you hear in the video.
“Are you [expletive] kidding me!?” Elena said in the caption.
“That’s what the fancy Ghirardelli chocolate chips used to cost,” the top comment read.
“Notice how it’s 10 oz instead of 12….” a person said.
“Chopping up a bar of chocolate tastes much better I swear! Yes chips are convenient but not superior,” another added.
Why has chocolate gotten so expensive?
Cocoa prices are at a 50-year high due to abnormal weather patterns in West Africa and sick trees that drastically reduced the harvest. (Similar issues have also impacted coffee.)
Ghana, for example, produced 1,047 thousand metric tons of cocoa beans from 2020 to 2021. That number dropped to 683 from 2021 to 2022 and was all the way down to 580 in the previous production year, according to Statista data.
In the summer of 2022, cocoa cost less than $2,000 a ton and peaked at more than $12,000 during the 2024 holiday season, ABC News reported. Now it’s down to about $10,000, which is still five times the 2022 price.
Major chocolate brands like Nestle, Hershey, and Mondelēz, which make Cadbury and Milka, have raised their prices in response to the cocoa harvest issues, and they say they plan to make more increases later in the year.
Some treat sellers started to focus more on other flavors other than chocolate as the cocoa issue improves. Major manufacturers are pushing people toward gummy candy instead. And Kit Kat, for example, launched cinnamon toast and Neapolitan flavors, NPR reported.
Other countries have also stepped in by planting cocoa trees for harvest.
“The price of cocoa is really responding to a long-term underinvestment in the cocoa sector,” said Alex Whitmore, who runs Boston chocolatier Taza Chocolate. “It’s a true correction for … so much underinvestment because the price has been so low for so long. We’re paying for that now.”
@defnotevaelena Are you fucking kidding me!? #greenscreen ♬ Bad Bih 4 Ya – GloRilla
The Daily Dot reached out to Elena for comment via email and TikTok direct message and to Nestle via email.
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