Your milk and cookies just got a little bit more expensive.
The price of sugar and sweets could rise 5.6% in 2024 after an extreme drought in Thailand and India caused another bad crop year.
This comes as US consumers already saw sweets prices rise 8.9%, which is well above historical averages, according to the Department of Agriculture.
The global cost of sugar is at its highest since 2011 as India experience a dry spell and Thailand languished under a heavy drought.
Six out of the 10 top producing sugar countries experienced extreme weather in 2023.
Thailand saw its normal product cut nearly 25% due to it.
India and Thailand are the world’s biggest exporters of sugar.
Sugar production is only expected to get worst as global temperatures continue to rise, fueling both severe droughts and extreme weather, which hurt crop production.
Major chocolate brand Mondelēz, which produces favorites Cadbury, Oreos and Toblerone, warned of a potential price hike in November.
CEO Dirk Van de Put told Bloomberg at the time that there would a “straightforward price increase” on some products due to the rising cost of sugar and cocoa.
He also said making products smaller “won’t solve this inflation at this stage.”
“While the rest of our input cost is largely flat for next year, those two are really causing us to have to increase prices again,” Van de Put said.
The price hikes were already visible to consumers around Halloween, when candy surged 13%.
Chocolate prices increased roughly 12% in 2023 – double what other groceries rose on average, thanks to rising demand in Asia and the spike in butter prices, used to make cocoa butter.
The sugar price surge can be attributed to the the El Niño weather pattern, with some experts jokingly saying it has a “sweet tooth.”
“You can say El Niño has a sweet tooth because it sort of eats or takes away much of the sugar in the world,” Agriculture researcher Carlos Mera told CNBC.
“That cost will be passed to consumers at some point in 2024.”
The heat effects of El Niño hit a peak in December, but will take time to spread across the globe.