TheStreet’s Conway Gittens brings you the biggest news of the day, including why Valentine’s Day is getting more expensive.
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00:00If your sweetie has a sweet tooth then prepare to feel a little sour when you
00:04get to the cash register for Valentine's Day. Chocolate prices are up an
00:08eye-popping 20% this year. The reason you'll have to pay more to show your
00:12love is due to a surge in the price of cocoa. The raw material used to make
00:17chocolate jumped to a record high of more than $12,600 per metric ton in
00:23December. Years of bad weather and agricultural disease have hurt cocoa
00:27production which is largely done in West African nations like Ghana. Prices
00:32have eased somewhat to around the $10,000 mark but that's still up from
00:37about $6,000 a year ago. Over the past two years the price of making chocolate
00:42has surged more than 167% according to the producer price index. Here's a random
00:49sampling of chocolate prices this Valentine's Day. Lint says a box of
00:54heart-shaped chocolate candy truffles will set you back 22 bucks. Hershey's
00:58locked in prices a year ahead of time so it says a one-pound bar of its
01:02eponymous chocolate will cost $14.99. On Godiva's website you can find a
01:09nine-piece gift box for $22. Americans consume 2.8 billion pounds of
01:14chocolate each year says the Cocoa Merchants Association of America. By the
01:20way, Americans are expected to spend a record $27.5 billion
01:25on Valentine's Day gifts including chocolates in 2025. According to the
01:31National Retail Federation that's up from $25.8 billion last year.
01:36Turning now to financial markets, the Dow got some love on Tuesday after feeling
01:41brokenhearted earlier in the session. Shares of Coca-Cola rallied on a
01:45resurgence in demand for its drinks especially Coke Zero Sugar and Fair Life
01:50Milk. Total sales and profits topped quarterly forecasts. That'll do it for
01:55your daily briefing from New York City. I'm Conway Gittins with The Street.