UK chocolate sales have soared by £50 million year-on-year, boosted by chocolate bar sales in supermarkets.
This is no surprise, as during the pandemic, Brits were put into lockdown, and even after lockdown was lifted, people continued to work from home.
The £50 million sales, only contributes to a 3% increase in the total value of chocolate sales. Even though the amount of chocolate consumed may have risen by two or three times that level but the type of chocolate bought in supermarkets is much cheaper.
Whilst there’s an increase in sales of multi-packs and larger bars for sharing. single bars sales dipped.
According to analysts at research group Kantar, sales of multi-packs of chocolate bars in supermarkets are up by more than a fifth, but the biggest increase has come from larger sharing bars, sales of which are up nearly 46% in supermarkets.
British supermarket, Waitrose said its sales of large sharing bars of brands such as Cadbury Dairy Milk were up by 37%. Demand for the supermarket’s own-label bars was also up by a fifth.
Due to government restrictions from the pandemic, travel and home visits were restricted, resulting in a decline of sales for small single bars and gift boxes.
Analysts put the overall rise in chocolate sales down to the ‘lipstick effect’. This is when facing an economic crisis, consumers will be more willing to buy less luxury goods and cheap treats sell especially well.
We are interested to see numbers for the speciality industry, which serves a different demographic. Hopefully, these will not be impacted by this ‘lipstick effect’ as much as commodity chocolate.
Jackson Woods, a consumer specialist at Kantar, said:
Shoppers have spent an extra £260m on chocolate to enjoy at home in the past six months.
The pandemic has changed our priorities, and for much of it we have been less focused on counting calories, and more on treating ourselves during a difficult time.
Chocolate is a relatively cheap and easy way to do that, and people have found comfort in their favourite brands.
In support of the ‘lipstick effect’ theory, cheaper supermarket chocolates cashed in, but the upmarket British chocolatier Hotel Chocolat experiencing 14% fall in sales during the last 6 months.
Lockdown forced its stores to close for three months, including over the key Easter and Mother’s Day selling periods, which hit sales hard.
Since the first lockdown in March, the UK had slowly eased its rules and shops were opening again. A recent surge in COVID however, has pushed the UK government into anther lockdown starting on Thursday 5 November.
Turbulent times make market predictions impossible, but as the sales numbers come through we can start to assess the state of the industry.
