MEQUON, Wis. — Chocolate can often be an indulgence, but with the price of raw ingredients continuing to rise, it may be more than calorie counts that come as an unwelcome surprise to customers.

The price of cocoa is hitting record highs, data shows. It nearly doubled between 2023 and 2024 due to a variety of factors, including crop issues in Africa, where most cocoa is produced.

The prices still have not come down, something that is worrying many small chocolate shops in Wisconsin.

Chef Kishoree Boegel owns Cocoa Tree Confectionery in Mequon. She has seen prices soar in recent years, saying it costs her about 200% more to buy cocoa than it did when she first opened the shop in 2020.

Not surprisingly, nearly everything she makes in her store contains chocolate, so there is no way around paying more.

“I gotta buy the chocolate, that is kinda a fixed cost for me. I need the chocolate. I can’t go without it,” said Boegel.

Boegel said she worries about passing the added cost on to customers, knowing there eventually comes a point where customers simply are not willing to spend more.

“There is a threshold as to how high I can raise them. I can’t go much higher than where I am at, so yeah, my profit margins are pretty thin,” said Boegel.

Instead of raising prices, Boegel said she carefully tracks what items sell well and which do not. If a particular product is not selling, she may eliminate it as an offering at the shop because it isn’t worth the cost of producing it.

Rising cocoa costs remain a top concern. However, as a business that first opened up right before the COVID-19 pandemic, Boegel said she tries to take it in stride as much as possible.

“You have to do it. You have to think on your feet. I will keep doing that as long as I can,” said Boegel.