The Egg Wars

Apologies for the brief break in blogs I have moved house and jobs in the last week so it has been somewhat manic! With only three weeks to go until the IB exams start there will be plenty of revision material and advice posted over the coming days and weeks. Do get in touch with material you would like to see on the blog that will help you with your revision.

On an Easter related note no doubt many of you will be taking a break from your revision to unwrap an Easter egg or two. There is a great article in The Telegraph today about the UK Easter Egg industry. Some stats that come out of the piece include:

80 million chocolate eggs will be sold over Easter in the UK.

This makes the chocolate egg market worth about £200m

The 10 most popular eggs are on average 19% cheaper this year than last year

As of the middle of March, sales of Easter eggs at Asda were 40% ahead of last year

Tesco expects to sell 6m Cadbury Creme Eggs this year

Over half of all eggs are sold in the four days before Easter

Interestingly the collapse of Woolworths has left a significant gap in the market (Woolworths had a 20% share of the egg market) and many of the major retailers are currently looking to fill this gap. Woolworths had ordered 20m eggs from suppliers such as Cadbury, Mars and Nestle before it failed as a business, Many of the eggs were exclusive to the chain. In February Tesco bought up all the eggs that were exclusive and began a price war with other leading firms (hence the 10 most popular eggs being 19% cheaper). Supermarkets are using Easter eggs as loss leaders to tempt shoppers into their stores. A fascinating article full of economics and business studies.