Lindt’s 10g Easter bunny costs 75p at Waitrose – the equivalent of £7.50 for each 100g.Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
It’s the bite-size bunny that could take a big chunk out of your Easter budget. Cost-conscious chocaholics might want to steer clear of Lindt’s tiniest golden rabbit after a Guardian investigation found that, pound for pound it seems to be the priciest Easter treat on supermarket shelves.
The Lindt Gold Bunny Mini Milk Chocolate weighs in at just 10g – it’s so light that when the Guardian went shopping it failed to register on the shop’s self-checkout. But price-wise it’s a heavyweight: across the main supermarkets we couldn’t find any Easter chocolate on sale at a higher cost for 100g.
It makes the tiny treat more than twice as expensive for each gram than its 100g-sized cousin, which the retailer has currently reduced by 60p to £3.15, and a 100g bar of Lidl Excellence dark chocolate, which sells for £2.75.
You get more buck for your buck – or doe for your dough – with a Waitrose offer of two 10g rabbits for 90p, but even then the cost for each gram is higher than most of the other Easter gifts on sale.
At Asda, where the bijou bunny retails for 60p, or two for £1 (£6 or £5 for 100g) – shoppers have given it short shrift. Comments on the shop’s website include “Absolutely minuscule, blink and you miss” and “Avoid. They look fairly big in the picture and they should state miniature. Coz they are the size of a 10p price if that.”
In Sainsbury’s, at 70p without a Nectar card – or 60p with one – it is also the most pricey way to buy an Easter chocolate.
While small treats are always likely to cost more than larger eggs because of the relative costs of packaging and transport, the baby bunny still stands out. Maltesers’ chocolate bunny is almost three times as heavy, at 29g, and sells for 55p in Waitrose – the equivalent of £1.90 for 100g.
The goofy-faced Smarties Bunny is just 18.5g, but at 65p is £3.52 for 100g, so less than half the price of Lindt’s.
The gold bunny is fiercely protected by its producer. Two years ago, Lindt took on Lidl and won, forcing the budget supermarket to melt down its copycat rabbits. The chocolate maker makes a range of sizes, including a luxury kilo version that retails for £65.
A Waitrose spokesperson said: “We work incredibly hard to keep our prices as low as possible, while paying our suppliers fairly. We have a wide range of Easter products to suit all budgets and regularly run promotions. For example, this Lindt mini bunny is now on a two for 90p offer, which works out considerably better value per bunny than other supermarkets.”
A Lindt spokesperson said the rising cost of ingredients was a challenge. “This applies in particular to our most important raw material, cocoa, the price of which almost doubled over the course of the last year, reaching a new all-time high on the London commodity futures exchange.”
The main factors driving up cocoa prices are abnormal weather in West Africa and a disease called “swollen shoot” that affects the trees and reduces the yield for the farmers.
The spokesperson said Lindt had made “a concerted effort to compensate for these increased costs through manufacturing efficiencies, cost savings and a forward-looking purchasing strategy. Given the scale of the raw material cost increases we also had to increase prices for our customers and in our direct business.”
Unlike other Easter treats, the bunny has not been the victim of shrinkflation, where an item is reduced in size to avoid or disguise an increase in price. However, the Guardian found several examples of gifts that have shrunk since last year’s celebrations as manufacturers attempt to keep costs down. Some of the biggest cuts have been made to the largest eggs.
Among the examples we found are Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Ultimate Fruit & Nut Easter egg, which was a hefty 532g last year, but this Easter is a more modest 400g – a cut of almost 25%, while the price remains at £12.
And the KitKat Caramel Cookie Collision Chocolate Incredible Easter Egg – last year’s version weighed 556.3g while this year’s is 512.7g.
A spokesperson for KitKat’s maker Nestlé said: “Each year we introduce a new Easter range with formats, sizes, weights and RRPs based on a range of factors, including the cost of manufacturing, ingredients and transport and the preferences of our customers and consumers. Final prices are at the discretion of individual retailers.”
Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury, said changes to product sizes were a last resort for the business. The high costs of ingredients, production and transport meant products were more expensive to make.
A spokesperson said: “While we have absorbed these costs where possible, we still face considerable challenges. As a result of this difficult environment, we have had to make the decision to slightly reduce the weight of a small selection of our Easter products, so that we can continue to provide consumers with the brands they love, without compromising on the great taste and quality they expect.”
Twice the price of halibut
The phrase “worth their weight in gold” is often overused but with Lindt’s Gold Bunny Mini Milk Chocolates selling at the equivalent of £75 a kilo, they give some other supermarket offerings a run for their money:
