Facing surging cocoa prices, Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli is scaling back employee perks, including its popular annual ski weekend and possibly its Christmas party, while explicitly ruling out layoffs for now.
The company has cancelled its annual ski weekend in Grindelwald, a long-standing employee event, and a source told a popular local financial blog that the Christmas party (which affects the group’s bottom line) is also likely to be scrapped this year. The cost discipline is being driven under CEO Ernst Tanner.
Apparently, the cuts stem directly from sharply higher cocoa prices. The company said it has “implemented various efficiency and cost-saving programs” specifically to keep price increases for consumers of Lindor balls and Lindt chocolate bars “as low as possible.” As part of those programs, it decided to “selectively suspend certain events, such as the annual ski weekend in Grindelwald, for once.”
In its half-year results published on 21 July 2026, the company reported organic sales growth of 4.3% to CHF 2.33 billion, while EBIT rose slightly to CHF 260.2 million and the operating margin improved to 11.2% from 11.0% a year earlier.
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Lindt & Sprüngli Protects Jobs: No Layoffs!
Crucially, Lindt explicitly stated that no operational layoffs are currently planned.
The company “has long been very restrictive with new hires, and possible alternatives are always examined first” before other measures are considered. In other words, Lindt’s strategy is to absorb cost pressure through hiring restraint, efficiency programs and selective perk-cutting — not through job cuts.
By contrast, other staff events are being preserved. The retirees’ gathering for former Lindt & Sprüngli Switzerland employees, organised by the company’s pension fund, will continue as planned, with those costs likely to be absorbed by the pension fund itself rather than by the operating business.
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Painful Cocoa Costs
Cocoa prices have been extraordinarily volatile. After hitting a record of roughly $11,900–$12,000 per tonne, prices fell sharply by around 45% at one point in 2026 before recovering by over 50% in subsequent weeks, creating a highly unpredictable cost environment for chocolate makers. As of mid-2026, cocoa was still trading around $6,500 per tonne on a CFR basis, a level that remains historically elevated compared with pre-2023 norms.
Manufacturers across the industry are also grappling with higher costs for sugar, milk, energy, packaging, transport and labour, not just cocoa, adding further pressure on margins industry-wide.
Lindt & Sprüngli actually improved its profitability in the first half of 2026 despite the cocoa price shock, weaker consumer sentiment and a soft Easter season.
Despite the improved underlying profitability, Lindt’s stock has performed poorly in 2026. Shares fell from a February high of roughly CHF 13,010 to around CHF 8,680, a decline of roughly a third, and touched a 52-week low near CHF 90,300 in late August. The stock’s price-to-earnings ratio, at 27.4x, now sits well below its 20-year average of 33x, and its EBITDA multiple has fallen to a 13-year low.
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