Easter confectionery sales in the UK grew by 8.6% during the five weeks before Easter, according to retail insights provider IRI.
The firm measured sales across all of the major grocery multiples, and found that sales peaked at £111m in the final week before the holiday. This represented close to a 6% increase on the same period the year before.
But IRI also claimed that many supermarkets had missed the chance to generate more than £5m’s worth of additional sales, following reports that some ran out of chocolate eggs. Along with Christmas and Saint Valentine’s Day, Easter is one of the key trading periods for chocolate products.
IRI head of strategic insight for retail Martin Wood said: “We’ve seen some reports suggesting that supermarkets were running out of eggs in the final week before Easter. So while sales did increase in that final week, they didn’t increase as much as they had in the earlier pre-Easter period starting in early March. I would estimate that the missed opportunity was £5.2m – this is the difference between the increase in sales that occurred in the final week and the increase that would have happened if the average sales growth over the five-week Lent period had been maintained.
“What this suggests to us is that we’re seeing a resurgence of seasonal event management in retail this year, following strong Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day sales. But it’s also clear that the major supermarkets underestimated the demand for Easter and that other retailers, like convenience stores, benefitted from this. It’s reasonable to assume that they could have done a lot better this year if they hadn’t sold out of eggs!”
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