US confectionery prices rise 67% over six years, according to latest studies

A fresh retail study has found that confectionery in the US has risen by a total of 67% in the past six years, amid notable pressures on the industry within supply chains and retail environment, reports Neill Barston.

The research from InvestorObserver asserts that as consumers are heading into Easter, they are paying more than ever for their candy, with issues continuing to increase, including the introduction of tariffs in the past year, which have impacted store pricing.

However, as Confectionery Production reported last week at the State of the Industry Conference, the sector remains in a comparatively buoyant position, with the overall value of the market having risen by one billion in the past year, to $55bn, though as analysts have noted, this has been largely attributed to year-on-year inflation.

According to InvestorObserver, while prices have gone up 67% since the Pandemic,  average household Easter candy budgets have grown only about 15% over the same period. Consequently, as it observed, that mismatch means a family of four spending the same roughly $93 Easter candy budget as in 2020 now walks away with about 40% less candy by weight.

As it noted, to buy the same amount of candy by weight purchased in 2020, a household would need to increase spending from $93.20 to approximately $155 in 2026 – a $62 increase for identical product volume.

Moreover, as the studies revealed, the apparent disconnect in pricing comes from the uneven nature of year-on-year changed, which have been static in certain periods, then have seen sudden rises of between 12-22%.

As a result, it found that the average price per ounce across five tracked Easter candies increased from $0.37 to $0.62. In terms of its methodology, the research tracked five top-selling Easter candies from 2020 to 2026 using Target.com prices sourced from the Wayback Machine and current listings, selected based on Instacart’s bestseller data.

Price rises over time
Sam Bourgi, senior analyst at InvestorsObserver explained the pattern of trading over the past five years had proved complex.

“It’s the classic boiling frog scenario that actually shows up in groceries year-round. You don’t jump out of the pot because the water heats up one degree at a time. Each individual increase feels tolerable – annoying, maybe, but not catastrophic. So you adjust. By the time you realise how hot the water has gotten, you’ve already lost significant purchasing power.”

Furthermore, as the report also found, the Easter aisle was also subject to ‘Shrinkflation’ in which products reduce in size but stay the same or cost more, which has been seen with Cadbury Mini Eggs shrinking from 10oz to 9oz in 2022 with no price change.

As our own title has covered, the phenomenon of shrinkflation is far from limited to one particular brand, in recent years, there have been downsizing incidents for a wide range of products, including Mars Galxay bars being notably smaller in the UK, Mondelez’s Milka bars in Germany, as well as McVites shrinking the size of multipack digestive biscuits within the past couple of years.

Indeed, as Confectionery Production has reported, such instances have led to the coining of a new phrase of ‘super shrinkflation’ in which product ranges are not only becoming more expensive in their own right, underlying economic challenges mean that pricing in retail becomes even more expensive (due largely to Brexit in the UK). 

As the latest report noted, in 2020,  Easter candies ranged from $3.49 to $3.99 – a tight window that made it easy to spot good and bad deals. By 2026, that range had exploded to $4.79 to $8.29. Similar products now vary by several dollars, making it harder to know what’s reasonable.

Furthermore, as the study found, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar stands out as the most extreme case in the research, with a 107.8% price-per-ounce increase over six years. The package size never changed – shoppers got the same 1.55-ounce bar throughout. But the price moved many times.

Its price grew steadily from $3.99 in 2020 to $6.39 by 2022. Then in 2024, it dropped to $5.49 – a $0.90 decrease that suggested relief might be coming. That relief lasted one year. By 2025, the price had jumped to $8.29, surpassing all previous levels.

“When a price drops and then spikes even higher, it feels more unfair than a steady increase. The drop resets your expectations (you think things are getting better) which makes the spike feel manipulative rather than just market-driven,” said Bourgi.

This research has revealed a pattern held across brands: steady, incremental changes that consumers absorbed without recognising the total impact notably over time.