Another eggs-ellent year as chocolate makers crack €24m Easter market

Luckily the hot weather isn’t likely to cool the fevered sales of chocolate Easter eggs

EASTER SUNSHINE is unlikely to dent Ireland’s annual seduction by eggs and bunnies, say confectionery makers, with the €24 million market set to entice consumers again this year – no matter how fast the chocolate melts.

“It’s the longest Easter season since 1943, but even though it’s later in the year, people are still shopping in the same way,” says Aoife Hallihan, head of marketing at Nestlé in Ireland.

It’s in the two weeks before Easter that sales “absolutely skyrocket”, she says. “This year the initial orders have been very strong.”

Some 1.1 million Irish households buy into the modern foil-wrapped version of ancient links between the Christian festival of Easter and the pagan adoption of the egg as a symbol of spring. According to 2010 data from the market research firm Nielsen, the Irish Easter egg market is worth about €20 million.

That’s just the hollow eggs – “novelty” items such as chocolate bunnies and “small indulgences” add another €4 million to the figure. This is the “exciting, growing” part of the market, says Hallihan.

Some studies suggest Ireland has the highest per capita chocolate consumption in the world, while others give that honour to the Swiss or the Austrians.

Cadbury, now owned by US food conglomerate Kraft, is the market leader in Ireland, with a 45 per cent chunk, followed by Nestlé at 20 per cent, Mars at 10 per cent and various others who make up the remaining 15 per cent of the market.

Seasonal chocolate packaging has become more of a concern for consumers, according to a Mintel research report published last year, prompting eco-packaging efforts from the major sellers.

It is not just the ethical considerations of excessive packaging that deters consumers from buying certain eggs, however. Aesthetics also come into play.

Despite a rise in private label seasonal chocolate, Easter is still mostly the preserve of the big confectionery brands.

After almost half of the consumers it surveyed agreed they would not consider giving own-label chocolate as a gift, Mintel recommended that retailers and manufacturers should “make better use of cross-branding opportunities” – in other words, by packaging chocolate with other items.

So far, so waist-thickening – but in recent years, the festive sugar rush is likely to be preceded by fervent physical activity. Easter egg hunts have become so popular that Laura Curtin, corporate affairs manager at Kraft Foods and Cadbury in Ireland, gets daily requests for chocolate eggs donations.

Marketing legislation means that confectionery manufacturers such as Cadbury cannot directly sponsor events that are aimed at under 16-year-olds, says Curtin. “There are strict guidelines.”

Knitters are also using creme eggs, traditionally Cadbury’s top seasonal seller, as the filling for woollen chicks sold to raise funds for charities, Curtin adds.

Hallihan says that luxury eggs aimed at the adult gift market have performed well to date this season. Easter is still very much a kid-centred holiday, however, and Nestlé’s biggest-selling Easter brand is child-favourite Smarties, with its most popular year-round brand KitKat coming in fourth behind Aero and Rolo.

Easter Sunday, which this year falls on the second latest possible date, marks the end of the chocolate gift season that begins with Christmas and continues through Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Hot weather doesn’t usually hurt sales of hollow eggs, according to Hallihan. Still, with temperatures set to reach highs of 21 degrees this weekend, the answer to the question “how do you eat yours?” may well be with sticky fingers, a serviette and a slight sense of regret.