Easter celebrations costlier for Long Islanders amid high egg, chocolate prices

Long Island parents are spending more to give their kids a sweet Easter.

That's because the cost of products that are central to Easter celebrations, from eggs to the cocoa beans used to make chocolate, have hit record highs nationwide in the past few months, retail experts said.

Demand for eggs typically remains elevated until after Easter, which falls on Sunday. But prices rose more than 100% year-over-year in March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest data.

Retail prices for chocolate, meanwhile, are estimated to be about 10% to 20% more than the costs a year ago, said David Branch, sector manager in the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, a division of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. that provides economic analysis about food industries. 

Still, some parents on Long Island are shelling out money to keep up the holiday festivities, from buying candy for their kids’ Easter baskets to buying eggs and dye for decorating, while they plan to make cuts elsewhere. 

“This tradition is important to them. I know they’re getting ... a little old for it,” said Jeanne Ceasar, 49, of Melville, on Tuesday, adding that she planned to dye eggs with her kids, ages 13 and 10, and bought candy and gifts to put in their Easter baskets. 

Ceasar purchased a carton of 18 eggs for $8.99 and other items from Stew Leonard’s supermarket in Farmingdale on Tuesday. But she said she has cut spending on some items, including junk food, to offset the higher prices of eggs and other groceries in the past few weeks. 

Kerrie Rivera’s 4-year-old daughter Olivia’s hands were stained with pastel colors Tuesday because they had dyed eggs in their West Babylon home that morning, said Rivera, 39, who also was shopping at Stew Leonard’s.

She, too, plans to put together Easter baskets for her daughter and 16-year-old son because they enjoy the tradition, she said.

“It’s something that I know my kids are going to remember and maybe, hopefully, they’ll do it with their children when they get older,” she said.

Of the Americans who celebrate Easter nationwide, 47% will skip dyeing eggs because of high egg prices and 52% said they don’t have a budget for the holiday, according to a nationally representative survey of 200 respondents conducted March 31 to April 4 by WalletHub, a Miami-based personal finance company.

But, when it comes to chocolate, consumers may buy smaller pieces or "smaller boxes of chocolate candy but still have chocolate at Easter,” said Randy Allen, senior lecturer in strategy and business economics at Cornell University and a former retail consultant.

Egg prices crack records 

Record-high egg prices this year were tied to an outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, or bird flu, which started in 2022 and reduced the number of egg-laying birds, causing an egg shortage.

“In the U.S. we’ve now lost more than 130 million egg-laying hens to this terrible outbreak, and more than 30 million laying hens have been lost since January 2025, alone,” Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board, said in a statement Tuesday.

Nationwide, retail egg prices reached a record high in February and then again in March, when the average price of a dozen large, grade A eggs rose to $6.23 from $2.99 a year earlier, a 108% increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Egg prices in Long Island stores have fallen since hitting $8, $9 or more in January and February, but they are still elevated.

In a Holiday Farms supermarket in Glen Head on Friday, the cheapest large, grade A eggs, the Eggland’s Best brand, were $5.79 per dozen, said David Mandell, the store’s owner.

At a King Kullen supermarket in Massapequa Park, the cheapest white, grade A large eggs were the store's brand, at $5.49 a dozen, while the cheapest at a ShopRite in Huntington were $4.99 a dozen for the ShopRite Bowl & Basket brand.

An increase in egg and egg product imports to the United States, mostly from Lithuania, Mexico and Turkey, has helped ease price pressure, said Ryan Urie, director of research and analysis in Food and Agricultural Commodities for S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Also, wholesale egg prices have fallen in recent months, but retail prices typically lag wholesale price changes by weeks, said Metz, adding that the increased demand for the Easter holiday may lead to higher prices.

At this point, tariffs enacted by U.S. President Donald Trump over the past several weeks are not having a significant effect on egg or cocoa bean prices, agricultural experts said.

Chafing over chocolate

But lower supplies for cocoa beans amid increased consumer demand have pushed prices up, Branch said.

About 70% of the world’s cocoa beans are produced in the West African countries of the Ivory Coast and Ghana, partly due to their favorable climates, but weather disturbances in recent years have destroyed crops, hampering cocoa growth, he said.

The world benchmark price of cocoa beans reached a record-high of $12,565 per metric ton Dec. 18, up 472% from $2,198 on July 22, 2022. The price was $9,671 per metric ton Thursday.

“While many consumers might still purchase cocoa items for Easter since it is a tradition, we expect to see smaller quantities and less cocoa purchases in the coming months as consumers look for ways to cut down on discretionary spending,” Branch said.

In Huntington, Sweeties Candy Cottage was bustling with 15% more customers from April 9 through Friday compared with the same period last year, but sales increased by only 13%, indicating that "more budget-conscious" customers were buying a little less, owner Lisa Hodes said. 

Easter is one of the busiest times of the year for the shop, said Hodes, whose shop sells a wide variety of treats, creates custom Easter baskets and makes its own chocolate. 

Wholesale “chocolate prices have gone up a ton," she said, adding that prices for gummies and other non-chocolate items also have gone up "a tremendous amount." 

The shop, which is paying between 17% and 28% more in wholesale chocolate prices this year, raised its retail prices for chocolates by 7% in February, said Hodes, adding she will not raise retail prices by a rate commensurate with her increasing expenses.

“I’m going to eat it and I’m going to ride it out. The way that I do my business is it’s a partnership with the community. What I put out is what I get back,” she said.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.