A free email for people who read every price tag
A candy bar's price starts thousands of miles from the candy aisle.
Each weekday we take one item from your store run and trace what moved its price, with the math shown. You finish with a straight call for the shelf.
4,217miles
A trace, start to finish
Cocoa lost about 70% of its price. Why did candy prices go up anyway?
All of the numbers below are public. Tap one to see who published it, and when.
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4,217miles
In recent seasons, the world's cocoa has come from two countries, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. The nearer of the two sits from the coast of Maine, the closest point in the lower 48.
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$2,410to $10,750
In November 2022, a ton of cocoa cost . By January 2025, the same ton cost . More than four times the price, in a little over two years.
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3 to 24months
Big chocolate makers buy their cocoa ahead of time. Hershey's 2025 annual report says it covers future needs generally out. So a bar on the shelf can be made with cocoa paid for up to two years earlier.
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$3,240a ton
By March 2026, the ton was down to , about 70% below the peak.
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Up 10%candy
Over that same stretch, January 2025 to March 2026, federal price data shows candy and gum prices up about .
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Down 60%profit
Hershey's higher list prices added about to its 2025 sales. Its profit still fell 60%, from $2.2 billion to .
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The ticker: HSY, The Hershey Company
That is where the chain ends. What you do with it is your business.
Some of the candy you bought in 2026 was made with cocoa paid for at 2025 prices.
Spring 2026, the candy aisle. What do you do?
The email always closes with a call at the shelf. Try making this one.
Tap a key
Wait
Holding off makes sense when a cheaper ingredient is already in the pipeline. Cocoa was already down about 70%. The catch is the 3-to-24-month buying window, so the wait could run long.
Switch
Swapping makes sense when one ingredient drives the price. Gummies and hard candy carry no cocoa, so this particular chain never touches them.
Stock up
Buying ahead makes sense when the next price move is up and already booked. With cocoa that far off its high, that case was hard to make.
In the real email, we press one key and name the number that would change our mind.
Send me the next traceSome shocks are the good kind.
Eggs set a record in March 2025: , the U.S. average. Bird flu had taken egg-laying hens in January alone. Farmers rebuilt. By September 1, 2026, the country had hens laying table eggs. That August, the dozen averaged .
Falling prices get the same full trace as rising ones.
About
a year back in your pocket
Compares August 2026 with August 2025 average prices, as if each held for a year.
Where the numbers come from
The figures come straight from whoever publishes them. That means the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Agriculture, world commodity price data, and the companies' own filings. When a tariff or a new rule is part of the chain, you get its rate and its date. The judging stays with you.
Tomorrow it could be the coffee, the bacon, or the gas out front.
The same treatment every time, with a call for the shelf at the end.