#Easter #eggs #prices #explode #sting #culprit
The traditional Easter egg will contain a very bad surprise for Italians this year. The prices of the typical Easter holiday product have in fact recorded very strong increases compared to last year, to the point that the price lists have risen on average by +24%, after the +15.4% recorded in 2023. The complaint comes from Codacons, which carried out a study comparing last year’s retail prices with current ones.
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Analyzing the price lists of the main large-scale retail chains, we discover that all Easter egg producers have increased their retail prices. Comparing the best-known brands that fill the shelves of Italian supermarkets and hypermarkets every year, average price increases of 24% emerge, which in some cases exceed 40% for certain branded chocolate eggs, according to the study by the consumer association. For some eggs from well-known brands specializing in chocolate, the price increases even reach +40%. Things are better, so to speak, for products aimed at children: the prices of eggs linked to cartoons, games, famous people, TV series, etc., increase on average by +16.7% compared to last year. On average, the production of Easter eggs in our country exceeds 31 thousand tons per year, with a turnover estimated at over 300 million euros in 2023: this means that, with the same purchases, the price increases will weigh around 72 millions of euros out of consumers’ pockets.
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The cause of the heavy increases for Easter eggs is the cocoa crisis: for this raw material the prices currently exceed the record reached in 1977, reaching 6,000 dollars per ton, to which is added the increase in the last year of the +72% for sugar and 52% for cocoa butter. Producers, therefore, have passed on the higher production costs to final consumers, through, concludes the Codacons focus, increases in public price lists.
