Regina's Candies has been hand-making chocolates, fudge and brittles in St. Paul since 1926, and moved to its present Saint Clair Avenue location in 1990. Its new owners say that won't change even as cocoa costs squeeze the candy industry. Tom Saunders, who took over the shop in May alongside Amanda Sames, says the family motto is simple: there's no skimping on the family recipe.
Saunders says Regina's will raise prices before it compromises on quality, according to CBS Minnesota. He said customers have been happy to pay for the shop's quality, and that the store's century of family tradition will help it stay resilient against both rising cocoa prices and competition from big-box retailers, per the same report from reporter Ray Campos, with contributions from Adam Duxter.
The shop's roots run deep in the neighborhood. Frank Elliott started the candy store in downtown St. Paul in 1926, according to MyVillager, and Charlie Elliott later opened a second location in West St. Paul in 1974. Regina's still uses the original recipes for its chocolates, fudge and brittles, all made in the back of the Saint Clair Avenue store, MyVillager reports.
A Tradition Passed Down Through Generations
Saunders, Sames and their son Fred are now listed as the shop's current owners, according to Regina's own account of its history on its website. The business describes itself as using the same small-batch recipes and handmade methods that have made it a family tradition since 1926, and says that tradition is often passed down from one generation of customers to the next.
That loyalty shows up at the counter. Some customers have shopped at Regina's for as long as 65 years, and their kids and grandkids now stop in after school, per MyVillager's reporting on the shop's hundredth anniversary.
Why Chocolate Got So Expensive
Cacao is the main ingredient in chocolate, and cacao prices have surged over the past several years, pressuring candy makers across the industry. Heat waves and heavy rains have contributed to crop shortages in West Africa, which produces three quarters of the world's cocoa, according to UNCTAD. Cocoa futures reached nearly $12,000 per metric ton at the end of 2024, a staggering jump from the $2,000 to $3,000 range typical over the prior two decades, as reported by CNBC.
Prices have since eased somewhat — cocoa futures were trading at $5,327 per metric ton as of CNBC's report, down 34% over the prior year, while separate data cited by Fox 9 showed cocoa falling from a record $10,710 per metric ton in January 2025 to $3,241 per metric ton by this past March. Still, candy makers are largely still working through cocoa purchased during the 2025 price spikes, which has delayed any relief for shoppers, according to CBS News. Chocolate prices were expected to run 8% higher this Halloween than last year, the outlet reported.
Shoppers Feel the Pinch at the Register
The numbers show up in everyday candy bowls. A 100-piece bag of assorted Halloween candy averaged $16.96 this year, up 3.5% from 2025 and 71% higher than in 2021, CBS News reported. Candy and chewing-gum prices overall rose 8.1% year over year in August, and were up 44% over the preceding five years, according to Fox 9's reporting on the Halloween candy market.
Shoppers appear to be responding by cutting back. Halloween candy sales fell 6.7% in the month ending October 17 compared with the same stretch last year, Fox 9 found, and small bags of candy were the only size category still showing sales growth, with large and extra-large bags taking the biggest hit. That's despite Americans being expected to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween in 2026, including $4.1 billion on candy alone, according to seed reporting attributed to the National Retail Federation — up from $13.1 billion in overall Halloween spending the year before.
How Other Candy Makers Are Coping
Regina's isn't alone in facing the squeeze, though not every confectioner is responding the same way. Abdallah Candies in Apple Valley said its prices were up nearly 20% because cocoa costs had more than doubled over the previous year, but the shop told CBS News Minnesota it was absorbing part of that increase rather than passing it all along, saying, “we're going to share in that increase.”
Bigger players have taken a harder line on pricing, with mixed results. Lindt's 11.8% groupwide price increases were tied to a 7.5% drop in chocolate sales volumes in the first half of the year, CNBC reported, while Barry Callebaut said global chocolate consumption fell 4.4% in the third quarter even as its own sales volumes grew. Nestlé, meanwhile, said higher cocoa and coffee costs dragged its underlying operating profit down 2.8% in the first half of the year. Some manufacturers have turned to cheaper ingredients altogether — CBS News reported that certain candy makers have replaced traditional milk-chocolate ingredients with alternatives such as vegetable oil to hold down costs, while Mondelez raised gummy-candy pack prices by 39% and Ferrero raised chocolate pack prices by nearly 19%.
Against that backdrop, Regina's is betting that its handmade, century-old approach — and the generations of St. Paul families who keep walking through its doors — will carry it through the latest round of cocoa turmoil without touching what's in the recipe.
