The States and Cities Where Americans Pay the Most for Chocolate

Remember, kids - chocolate is not just for Easter. But you could be forgiven for thinking it's just for special occasions, given the current rise in prices.

Why is chocolate so pricey right now? It's not like it can only be gotten from brown cows (although 16.4 million Americans believe this is where chocolate milk comes from). But the chocolate industry is having a bit of a "meltdown," with cocoa beans "more valuable than several precious metals" and having "surged faster than even bitcoin," according to NPR. Global cocoa supplies were down 10.9% this spring due to crop conditions, even as America's romantics bought up 58 million pounds of chocolate to give to their lovers ahead of Valentine's Day. And so, the cost to consumers went up.

But the price of chocolate is not spread evenly across the whole country. To find which cities, states and brands have the most costly chocolate treats, we analyzed price data for Target stores around the country.

What We Did

The team here at CouponBirds researched the price by ounce of the most popular chocolate products at Target in America's biggest cities using data from Instacart. Then, we calculated the average price per ounce for each product by brand for each city and state and compared them to the national average to find the local premium on branded chocolate goods.

Key Findings

• Chocolate is most expensive in New York City, costing 20.66% above the national average.

• Hawaii is the most expensive state for chocolate, with the average cost 12.90% higher than the national figure.

• Chocolate is cheapest in Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine, where it costs -3.64% less than the national average.

• The price of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Snack Sized) in Honolulu is 40.27% over the national average - the biggest price disparity of any chocolate product in any city.

The States That Pay the Biggest Price Premium for Chocolate

At a statewide level, we found that the inhabitants of 30 U.S. states enjoy average prices for chocolate (within 1% of the national average for chocolate) - although folk in certain cities or seeking certain brands face stark disparities. Three states face a premium of more than 5% against the national average, with Hawaii (12.90%) and New York (10.70%) charging the most for chocolate by a significant leap.

In New York, the price of cocoa beans reached a record $5,500 per metric ton in February. Meanwhile, Hawaiian retailers face steep import bills, and locally grown cocoa on the islands is still a relatively new venture, fraught with infrastructural and environmental challenges.

Five states pay over 3% less than the national average for chocolate: Washington, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. Chocolate has been a big deal in New England for over 300 years, with Boston a hotspot for the cocoa bean as well as its coffee cousin. However, Massachusetts is far more expensive than its neighbors, at 4.14% above the national average - rising to 15% in Boston, in particular.

The U.S. Cities That Pay the Biggest Price Premium for Chocolate

The price disparities for chocolate are much higher from city to city than at state level. We found eight big cities that pay more than 10% over the national average. Chief among these is New York City (20.66%), with a disparity that's nearly 5% more than second-placed Oakland, California (15.83%). Boston, Massachusetts - the first place to have coffee and chocolate houses and the birthplace of the chocolate chip cookie, is third on 15%.

New York City is home to some of America's priciest specialist chocolatiers, although our study is based on grocery store prices. However, the presence of these chocolatiers does flag the city's appetite for chocolate as a luxury, with high-income consumers grabbing bars from grocers that face high rental and running costs in addition to the delivery delays and limited storage space associated with an urban center of this density.

The Cities That Pay the Biggest Price Premium for Favorite Chocolate Products

Next, we looked at the top prices for particular products from popular chocolate brands. The most glaring anomaly is the Honoluluan Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (Snack Sized), which costs 40.27% more than the national average. This is a particularly outsized price for a snack-sized Reese's because the four next most expensive locations all bring in the Peanut Butter Cup for under 25% more than the national average.

Perhaps Reese's is pricier in Hawaii due to demand for local delicacies such as "Reese's Pieces French Toast, topped with vanilla ice cream, peanut butter cups, whipped cream, and a drizzle of peanut butter and chocolate sauce." How do you say "TAKE MY MONEY!" in Hawaiian?

Elsewhere, Dove Milk Chocolate Promises are at a fixed price point that's 30.62% over average in several cities, including New York and San Francisco. In blind taste tests, Dove chocolate was described as "more present and complex," "more expensive" and "fancier" than rival brands.

The Cities That Pay the Biggest Price Premium for Hershey's Chocolate

A now-familiar bunch of 'expensive chocolate' offenders are among those with the highest average prices across the Hershey's range: Honolulu, Boston, two New York cities and San Francisco. But also among the top ten is Philadelphia, where brand founder Milton Hershey started his first candy business in 1876 (it ended in bankruptcy).

Hershey was born 100 miles west of Philadelphia, in Derry Township, PA, and established the Pennsylvania town of Hershey nearby for his employees in 1903. More recently, the company flourished as consumers comforted themselves with chocolate during the pandemic but raised its prices in 2023 to cushion the rising cost of ingredients. With the cocoa crisis far from over, it may not be the last price hike that Hershey makes: "Given where cocoa prices are, we will be using every tool in our toolbox, including pricing, as a way to manage the business," says CEO Michele Buck.

The Cities That Pay the Biggest Price Premium for Mars Chocolate

Frank C. Mars was born in Minnesota but first started making and selling candy in Tacoma, Washington, moving back to Minnesota to start his first business in 1920, later relocating headquarters to Newark, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Today, Mars chocolate is most expensive in New York City (23.46% more than the national average) and Boston (19.17%)

Mars recently shrank its Galaxy bar in the UK to avoid price rises. It was notable that for its Superbowl slot this year, Mars advertised its peanut butter M&Ms rather than its chocolate products. The company was already amid a slight pivot from chocolate-led snacks, touting its nut-and-grain Kind bar as a world-conquering snack in the age of healthy eating - although it contains 12g of sugar and is just ten calories short of a Snickers.

The States That Pay the Biggest Price Premium for Cadbury Chocolate

Cadbury was founded in Birmingham in the UK, and, like Milton Hershey, founder John Cadbury's son George built a town for the company's employees - the famous Bournville. Fans of the chocolate can expect no such refuge in Oakland, California (20.03%), and Provo, Utah (16.19%), which are the most expensive U.S. markets for Cadbury's chocolate, despite Hershey buying the confectionary part of the company in 1988.

To add insult to the injury of rising prices, it has been noted that Cadbury chocolate made outside of the U.S. has a richer, higher quality taste than that manufactured for the brand by Hershey in the States. But naturally, it's easier and cheaper to get hold of the locally-produced stuff, which is one reason the Cadbury brand is not as big as Hershey's own-brand chocolate in America. "Bringing in bars from overseas makes for a premium item, and from a value perspective, buying a Hershey bar just makes more sense to most consumers," says candy historian Jason Liebig.

Bean Story

Chocolate prices are not about to fall. In fact, the U.S. market may just be awakening to how unusually affordable grocery store chocolate has been over the years, mostly because cocoa has not become a commercial plantation business, unlike tea and coffee. The result has been underpaid, under-protected farmers, who are now struggling to cope with the onset of climate change-related weather conditions that continue to impact crops.

Along with the rise in personal health awareness, it is a good moment for consumers to truly consider what they value in a chocolate product - from flavor and texture to nutritional value and a fair price for farmers - and think twice as they reach for a brand, whatever city they're in.

Methodology

To find out the U.S. states and cities that pay the highest price premium for chocolate, we gathered data from instacart.com for a selection of the most popular chocolate products:

• Hershey's: Milk Chocolate Kisses, Milk Chocolate, Milk Chocolate Nuggets

• Reese's: Miniature Cups, Peanut Butter Cups Snack Sized, Peanut Butter Cup Thins

• Cadbury's: Dairy Milk, Fruit & Nut, Caramello Miniatures

• Nestle: KitKat Miniatures

• Mars: Twix Fun Size, Snickers Fun Size, M&Ms, M&Ms Peanut, Dove Milk Chocolate Promises

• Lindt Milk Chocolate Truffles

• Ferrero Rocher

• Kinder Bueno minis

We searched for their prices in the top 100 most populous cities in the U.S. and the top three most populous cities in each state. To make things fair, we only considered Target as the selling store. We did not consider any kind of shipping or delivery costs.

With data in hand, we calculated each product's price per ounce and calculated the average by brand and nationally. We also grouped the cities to form state data.

Finally, we compared each state's average price per ounce (overall and by brand) with their respective national averages to obtain each state's chocolate price premium.

This study was completed in April 2024.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.