UK shoppers spent £9.2 billion on chocolate and sweets in 2025, according to The Grocer's Guide to Confectionery, published in February 2026. That's up 6.8% on the year before, a rise of £587 million. It's the headline figure everyone's repeating, but the detail underneath it tells a more useful story: unit sales, meaning the actual number of items bought, fell by 2.3% over the same period. People bought less confectionery by volume and still handed over more money for it. Here's what's actually behind that gap, and where it leaves anyone trying to keep their sweet habit on a budget.
Why spending is up while the number of items bought is down
The simplest way to read a market where value rises and volume falls is that prices per item have gone up faster than people have cut back. That's exactly what's happened here. Chocolate has been the main driver, and chocolate's main cost is cocoa. Poor 2024 harvests in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, which between them grow most of the world's cocoa, sent futures prices to record highs. Manufacturers absorbed some of that but passed a lot of it straight through, either as higher shelf prices or smaller bars for the same price. We've covered the cocoa side of this in more detail in Why Chocolate Prices Are Rising, but the short version is that this isn't retailers padding their margins. It's the raw ingredient costing more to buy.
Where the growth is actually concentrated
Not every part of the market is moving the same way. Mainstream, everyday chocolate still holds the largest share of spend, but it's the segment losing the most ground on units, as shoppers either cut back or trade across to something else. Premium and gifting chocolate, the boxed, branded, higher-cocoa end of the shelf, has been more resilient and in places grown strongly, because people buying it for a treat or a present are less price-sensitive than someone restocking the cupboard. That's part of why gift boxes and selection tins keep showing up at full price even outside the big gifting occasions.
Sugar confectionery is a different story
Non-chocolate sweets, boiled sweets, gums, chews and the rest of the pick 'n' mix counter, aren't exposed to the cocoa price spike in the same way, since cocoa isn't the main ingredient. That's left sugar confectionery looking comparatively steadier on both price and unit sales than chocolate over the same period, and it's a reasonable part of why pick 'n' mix and retro sweets have kept finding new customers even as chocolate gets more expensive. If chocolate is where the price rises are landing hardest, sugar confectionery is where there's still room to buy a reasonable amount without the bill creeping up.
Where value-conscious shoppers can still find a good deal
None of this means there's no way to manage the cost. The clearest lever is buying format rather than waiting for a discount that may not come. A single 38g chocolate bar at a newsagent and the same chocolate bought as part of a wholesale case work out very differently per item, which is the whole logic behind our Multipacks & Cases range, including lines like Cadbury Dairy Milk 4-Packs by the case and Lindt Lindor Treat Bars by the case. For non-chocolate sweets, our Bulk Bags collection does the same job: buying by weight rather than by the small bag keeps the cost per sweet down, which we've worked through properly in Bulk Bags vs Share Bags: Cost Per Sweet. If you want the fuller picture on how manufacturers price packs and where genuine multibuy savings sit, our guides to price-marked packs and multibuy discounts cover both in plain terms.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Brits spend on sweets in 2025?
£9.2 billion, according to The Grocer's Guide to Confectionery (February 2026), up 6.8% on 2024.
Why did spending go up if people bought fewer sweets?
Unit sales fell 2.3% over the same period. The extra spend comes from higher prices per item, particularly on chocolate, rather than from people buying more.
What's driving the rise in chocolate prices specifically?
Record cocoa prices following poor 2024 harvests in West Africa pushed up the cost of making chocolate, and manufacturers have passed much of that on through higher shelf prices and smaller pack sizes.
Are all sweets getting more expensive, or just chocolate?
Chocolate has been hit hardest because cocoa is its main cost driver. Sugar confectionery, like boiled sweets, gums and chews, uses little or no cocoa, so it has generally held its price and its unit sales better.
How can I get better value on sweets and chocolate right now?
Buying in wholesale case quantities or bulk bags rather than single retail packs keeps the cost per item down, since that pricing is built around volume rather than retail markup.
