Cadbury-owner Mondelez is understood to be looking into the possibility of acquiring US confectionery giant Hershey.

According to Bloomberg, Mondelez has made a preliminary approach about a possible combination, however, talks are in early stages and there is currently no certainty that a deal will be made.

Last month, Hershey saw its quarterly sales fall to nearly $3bn (£2.3bn) amid weaker demand, in contrast, Mondelez saw an almost 2% increase in sales to $9.2bn (£7.2bn).

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The latest discussions follow a similar move in 2016 when the Oreo maker initially tried to buy Hershey, however, the US chocolate giant rejected Mondelez’s $23bn (£18bn) bid.

At the beginning of the year, the industry warned that confectionery products were at risk of imminent price hikes as the climate crisis saw the global cost of sugar soar.

Extreme weather, such as dry spells in India and drought in Thailand threatened crops and delivered underproduction rates from these regions, which are big exporters of sugar.

At the time, Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put said there would be “straightforward price increase,” for consumers, adding that shrinkflation or reducing product sizes, “won’t solve this inflation at this stage”.

“While the rest of our input cost is largely flat for next year, those two are really causing us to have to increase prices again.”