Chocolate buyers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria have been telling Lindt something at the till for a while, and on Tuesday the Swiss chocolate maker said it had heard them. It cut its forecast for this year's sales growth to between 0% and 2%, from 4% to 6%, blaming weaker orders in those three countries and an unprecedented heatwave across Europe.
How the price rises caught up with it
It starts with cocoa. When cocoa prices hit historic highs, Lindt passed the cost on, and chief executive Adalbert Lechner calls those increases necessary. For a while the sums worked: in the first half of 2026, prices up 11.8% helped deliver sales growth of 4.3%. But Lindt was selling less chocolate to get there, with volumes, adjusted for the mix of products, down 7.5% over the same six months.
Then the summer joined in. Lechner told a media call that the European heatwave shaved roughly 1.5% off growth, and Lindt now plans to put more money into ice cream equipment for its shops. He warned that "we have to prepare for hotter temperatures in any summer". The damage was European: North America and Asia held up.
Cheaper cocoa, and lower price points
Cocoa has eased from its peak, and Lindt expects cost pressure to ease gradually over the coming months. Its hedging meant it barely felt the drop this year, but Lechner told reporters that next year's cheaper cocoa "allows us to do lower price points". Lower prices introduced in some key markets in August had already shown "that there is a direct link to volume development", he added.
How far those cuts go depends on whose account you read. Bloomberg reported Lechner as saying Lindt is cutting prices on its Christmas range and will lower them across the board from January. Lindt's own announcement talks only of an adjusted pricing strategy, alongside more spending on its brands, new products and cost savings, which it says will get volumes growing again in 2027.
The one part of its guidance Lindt left alone is profit: it still expects to keep a slightly bigger slice of every franc of sales this year. Investors were less convinced by the rest, and the shares fell as much as 8% in early trading in Zurich, Bloomberg reported.
The next test is 19 January 2027, when Lindt publishes its 2026 sales, Christmas season included.
