Price war on the way - with chocolate as the winner

Great news for those of us whose Easter is never complete without overdoing the milk chocolate egg consumption….

Woolworths used to have the largest market share in the Easter Egg market. So they would have placed substantial orders with Nestle, Mars and Cadburys for their Easter 09 stock.

Back in the long-distant past, I was audit manager on the Nestle Rowntrees business in the UK and I remember fondly wandering around the production lines busy making Easter eggs. The key, however, was that production took place in October and November, some 2-3 months ahead of when the retailers needed the stocks in store.

So the Easter egg manufacturers may have been sweating a little about what they would do with the surplus stocks after Woolworths collapsed.

Fear not. According to this article in the Guardian, Tesco has seized the initiative and bought up any exclusive stocks made for Woolworths. It plans to use them as part of an Easter egg price war in March 2009.

Not surprisingly, Asda has claimed that it wont be beaten on price.

Which is great news for budget-conscious consumers, as well as those of us who need at least three milk chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday to feel that we’ve really got into the spirit of the occasion.