A sideways look at economics
With February drawing to a close, an important holiday is upon us, namely that of Pancake Day,[1] otherwise known as Shrove Tuesday and/or Mardi Gras. This day marks the end of the carnival season in Christian tradition and is a day of indulgence in preparation for Lent (unless you’re part of the Oriental Orthodox church, in which case you warm up with a pre-Lenten fast – lucky you).
Beginning with Ash Wednesday, Lent, which comes from an Old English word meaning ‘to lengthen’ (as the days are growing longer during this period), commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent fasting and being tempted in the desert. Ending at Easter, it has traditionally been a time for giving up on worldly pleasures, turning towards prayer and giving alms.
However, despite our increasing fondness for challenging ourselves (think New Year’s resolutions and the vast multitude of TikTok XX-day challenges), the observance of Lent is on the decline among believers and non-believers both. According to a YouGov survey, only 5% of Brits gave anything up for Lent in 2023, a drop from 12% in 2012, and while the ‘very or fairly religious’ were more likely (at 17%) to have given anything up, this was down more than 10 percentage points in a decade.
For those lingering Lent observers, chocolate and sweets have been the most popular things to give up, followed by alcohol/going to the pub and fatty foods. Interestingly, given the vast amount of articles on how Gen Z eschew romantic relationships, while only 2% in 2012 gave up sex, 8% chose this as their Lent offering in 2023, with the popularity of this option largely being driven by the 18-24 age group.
However, it would seem that what most of us are giving up for Lent, is Lent itself. But what if that wasn’t the case? Say the increasing uncertainty, doom and/or gloom of our times resulted in a mass return to devout Christianity and that the whole of the UK gave up chocolate for a month, what would happen then?
First, we need an idea of how much chocolate is consumed in the UK; according to numbers from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the average Brit ate 4.6 kilograms of chocolate in 2022, or 12.6 grams per day. If (like me) you’re an individual concerned with Cadbury’s bottom line, this number might appear quite low; it also differs from estimates from private data providers like Statista, who in a 2017 report noted 7.6 kilograms of chocolate were consumed per capita or around 21 grams per day. Let’s therefore say the true figure is in between, at 16.7 grams, so each month you are eating 502 grams of chocolate (although at risk of revealing my own chocolate consumption, this still seems low to me).
A great tragedy of our world is that most chocolate, while delicious, is not especially healthy, so cutting it out of your diet for a month should have some effect on your waistline, but how much? Assuming 532kcals per 100 grams of chocolate, this means that in a month you’ve saved yourself around 2672kcals, amounting to about 38% of a kilogram. Not very impressive, especially accounting for the cost to your happiness.
Money-wise, your savings for the month will depend on what type of chocolate consumer you are: a multiple-times-a-week dairy milk duo, or the disturbing type of person who can bulk buy chocolate and then keep it in their house for ages. The first person would save about £12.00 the second £7.00 (or £6.30 with a supermarket rewards card). Again, not numbers that make you jump up and say ‘I need to give up chocolate for Lent’, but reverting back to the macro picture, are we at least flexing our consumer power to ‘Big Chocolate’?
According to https://www.snackandbakery.com, the top five confectionary companies worldwide in 2023 were Mars, Mondelēz, Ferrero, Hershey and Nestlé. Would the UK giving up chocolate for a month make a dent in their earnings? For privately owned Mars and Ferrero, it’s hard to say, as both decline to share much in the way of annual reporting. Hershey’s, meanwhile, publishes annual reports but is stingy on the details. Given that most of their activity takes place in North America (international sales excluding North America made up only 8% of net sales in 2022), we’ll disregard them here.
Nestlé reported that UK sales made up 3.6% of total sales, assuming that share is constant over products, this means they sold CHF221 million worth of chocolate to the UK in 2022. Assuming chocolate consumption reverts back to its normal level post-Lent, and disregarding a bunch of indirect and secondary effects, Nestlé would lose about CHF18.4 million (£16.5 million using current exchange rates) — less than one percent of their total sales.
Mondelēz, who reports net revenue rather than sales, unfortunately does not give the UK share, but given their ownership of Cadbury we’ll put it at slightly higher than Nestlé, say 4.6%. This makes the UK’s share of net chocolate revenues in 2022 $436 million, or £29.5 million per month at today’s exchange rates. However, while the overall hit to Mondelēz is higher than for Nestlé, we’re still looking at below one percent relative to total net revenue.
So, all told, a month with no chocolate has not made us slimmer, richer or given us more influence over the big multinationals. Could fasting for Lent at least feed your soul more than chocolate? This author will not be finding out.
[1] The tradition of making pancakes comes from the need to use up un-Lent-like perishable ingredient like eggs, fat and milk.
More by this author