Durex and KitKat to see prices rise, makers warn

Price rises come as cost of living crisis continues

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Condoms and chocolates are about to get more expensive, as the makers of Durex and KitKat have both warned of price increases due to growing production costs.

Nestle boss Mark Schneider, who looks after brands like KitKat and Nescafe, said it was a “safe assumption” that prices would rise this year and that all aspects of the company have been impacted by inflation.

He told the BBC: “It is a safe assumption that our input cost increases for 2022 will be higher than 2021, that is something that we have to reflect in our pricing.”

Schneider continued: “There is almost no place in the company that is exempt of inflation now. Some of these things you can hedge against, some not.”

Similar sentiments have been echoed by Reckitt Benckiser, the company which produces products like Dettol and Durex.

However, despite Reckitt Benckiser seeing its costs rise by 11 per cent in 2021, chief executive Laxman Narasimhan said the company hoped to absorb some of the increases and products wouldn’t be rising by this amount.

Reckitt Benckiser chief financial officer, Jeff Carr, said. “We are passing some pricing onto consumers but we minimise that through the programmes we have…to absorb those cost increases.”

It comes after Unilever, which makes products such as Marmite, Dove’s soap and Hellman’s mayonnaise, warned last week that prices are set to rise in 2022.

“We don’t want to put prices up but we’re seeing the highest inflation we’ve seen in a decade,” Unilever said in a statement at the time.

“There will be price increases on some products and in some markets but it will not be uniform across the world.”

Inflation has hit a 30-year high of 5.5 per cent in the year to January and the Bank of England has estimated that the cost of living could rise by 7 per cent by spring.