Christmas is in four months. Sounds far away and at the current temperatures even further. Nobody likes to imagine Santa Clauses in swimming trunks either. How the white bushy beard lays like a sun sail over the bulging belly. Or Christmas women in chic bikinis with a reindeer print and tiny golden fake Christmas balls on the clasp. And does the Christmas workforce actually take off their hats when sunbathing?
The manufacturers of sweet Christmas goods have other worries right now, which could soon become the worries of consumers – at the latest when the vanguard of the products is available in the shops at the beginning of September, right in front of the whine zone in front of the checkout next to the freezer with the ice cream Stem for the end of summer. The howling could also come from the parents this year, because it may well be that they have to pay more for Stollen, Printen and other Christmas treats because the prices for energy and raw materials have risen, as the dpa news agency quotes the Federal Association of the German Confectionery Industry .
“Cost tsunami” among confectionery manufacturers
Christmas is just another ordinary market with the usual mechanisms: supply, demand, costs, price.
“Some of our ingredients have almost doubled in price again this year,” says Jürgen Brandstetter, Managing Director of the Nuremberg manufacturer Lebkuchen-Schmidt: “Unfortunately, a price adjustment cannot be avoided this year after we were able to absorb many increases last year. ” The Lambertz Group from Aachen finds even more dramatic words. She speaks of a “cost tsunami” for raw materials, energy, packaging, logistics and personnel. However, it is not possible to say how this will affect retail prices. In the case of seasonal baked goods such as gingerbread, Printen and Stollen, the price increases have always been moderate compared to other baked goods groups. Well, what does season mean? This season starts at the end of August and ends just before the Easter bunnies hit the shops.
In any case, the manufacturers warn preventively so that the shock at the checkout about the higher prices is perhaps not quite as great. Whereby: Those who had or have to fill a bag for a first grader at the start of school should have already noticed the price increase for sweets.
The Federal Statistical Office does not publish an inflation rate for Christmas treats or at least in summary for all the things that Santa people carry around in their sacks – both hardware (new cell phone, knit tights, crayons…) as well software (Printen, gingerbread, chocolate balls …). But there is a clue: the rate of food inflation. In 2022, these increased in price – measured as a change in the consumer price index – by 13.4 percent compared to the previous year. Santa Clauses and printen are also food, some even claim that dominoes are a staple food for which they would be willing to pay anything.
Santas are also food
According to the manufacturers, it is not foreseeable how much more expensive the delicacies will be. The production has been running at full speed for a long time. Many raw materials – sugar, cocoa, raisins, nuts, flour, sugar beet syrup – have long been bought. The producers should therefore know what they paid and can calculate the cost of goods per Santa Claus plus energy plus personnel costs plus packaging plus transport. But the manufacturers are not quite masters of the prices either. In principle, the market for Santa Clauses works like almost all markets: the retail chains put pressure on them, demand discounts and if a supplier doesn’t spurt – this is now a hypothetical example, i.e. a kind of Christmas fairy tale – the purple Santa Claus is simply exchanged for the gold or the green one . This market is anything but peaceful.
Santa Clauses have long been online. The variety is great and the price differences are significant. At the online retailer Natur Pur, the 80-gram light organic dark Santa Claus from Rosengarten, as of Monday, costs 2.49 euros – with packaging and shipping 6.99 euros. The World of Sweet demands 150 grams of whole milk for Confiserie Weibler’s Santa Claus, 5.49 euros – without shipping costs. Last year, the lightly clad hollow figure cost 50 cents less, which – surprise – means a price increase of almost exactly ten percent. However, the Christmas goods will only be available here in a few weeks.