19 April 2016

Hot cross buns and Easter eggs already?

| Alexandra Craig
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Christmas and the New Year have passed, their only remnants being reduced price wrapping paper and tree-shaped biscuit boxes. But that’s okay, because Easter is next week. Or so you’d think if you walked in to most supermarkets these days.

chocolate bunnies

Woolworths and Coles are already stocking chocolate eggs, hot cross buns and I’ve even seen a few fluffy bunny toys. In recent memory, the earliest I’ve seen Easter merchandise is usually in February – about two months before Easter. This year, it was Christmas Eve. I’m not even joking. I was on my way out of Canberra and filled up with fuel at the Woolworths service station near EPIC. Lo and behold, there were Easter eggs on the counter. As I took a photo, the store manager even commented that he thought it was ridiculous but that’s the stock he was sent so it went on the shelves.

I’ve heard so many complaints in the last week about the early arrival of holiday-related merchandise, but I’ve also heard a counter argument: ‘Hot cross buns are delicious! I wish you could get them through the whole year!’.

I’m not sure where I stand on this debate. I think it’s a little ridiculous, and obviously driven by commercial value because if something is there people will buy it. I even bought a small pack of eggs the other day (I swear they taste better than block chocolate), but because of the ridiculous price ($4.50 for about 12-15 solid eggs), I probably won’t buy them again before Easter. I’m not a mega fan of hot cross buns either so I won’t purchase them at all.

Is holiday merchandise made available early because there is a genuine demand for it, or rather because people will buy anything if it’s dangled in front of them? Christmas decorations are the same. They’re stocked by September usually. Do people really buy tinsel and leave it lying around their house until December? Who are these people!? Are they the same people that buy Christmas wrapping for 40 cents in January and store it until December rolls around? Or is it all a ploy to remind people that Christmas is coming (in several months time) to drive them into a mindless panic present buying mode, thus spending a heap of money every time they have a bauble or a plastic reindeer shoved in their face?

Throwing back to Easter merchandise, one thing I am interested to know is with Easter eggs being readily available and extremely visible in the stores, do children pick up on this and question their parents on the legitimacy of the Easter Bunny? Some kids believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa, Tooth Fairy etc until they are over 10 years old, surely they’d pick up on eggs being available in stores? Or do people tell their kids these days that the Bunny buys them first?

Are you influenced by the early availability of holiday merchandise? If hot cross buns were available throughout the year would you buy them regularly?

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Alexandra Craig9:46 am 19 Jan 15

John Moulis said :

I worked at Woolies in the 1990s and I was told that Easter eggs and hot cross buns are sold year-round because there is a demand for them year-round. As far as Easter eggs are concerned, where do you draw the line? Do the Cadbury Creme Egg and Kinder Surprise fall into the category of Easter eggs, and should they also be banished from the shelves in non-seasonal times?

Kinder Suprise are there all year round, but Cadbury Creme Eggs aren’t. Creme Eggs only appear with the other Easter merchandise I’m pretty sure.

I worked at Woolies in the 1990s and I was told that Easter eggs and hot cross buns are sold year-round because there is a demand for them year-round. As far as Easter eggs are concerned, where do you draw the line? Do the Cadbury Creme Egg and Kinder Surprise fall into the category of Easter eggs, and should they also be banished from the shelves in non-seasonal times?

Woolies have some of their biggest sales of Hot Cross Buns when they first bring them out in Jan/Feb, so guess what they’re going to do every year then? Those Malteser bunnies are very popular so Mars probably do the same thing. And can’t you get Cadbury Creme Eggs all year around – again a very popular product (who knows why – sweet, sickly sugary overload BLERGH).

It’s just one of those things. If people didn’t buy them, they wouldn’t put them out. But we do, so they do.

Jardeath said :

As someone who had chocolate hot cross buns for breakfast this morning, I’m not complaining.

You should be. My only complaint about hot cross buns is all the “new” flavours. They should be the standard fruit hot cross buns. Fruitless ones are sacrilegious as are chocolate, sticky date and other so called gourmet hot cross buns 🙂

Evilomlap said :

“I even bought a small pack of eggs the other day (I swear they taste better than block chocolate)”

So true! It’s like a thin slice of cheese always tastes better than gnawing on the whole block like a rat!

No way! I love when you’re grating the end of some cheese and you get to the part where you can’t grate anymore and you have a chunk of cheese to eat! Best ever. I love block cheese 😛

Where easter items in store are concerned.. I find it’s only the smaller things you can buy at this time.. which I don’t see much of an issue with, plus chocolate hot cross buns are soo tasty! I’d like to be able to eat them all the time.

Emily Morris6:22 pm 13 Jan 15

If I had to declare my last meal it would be hot cross buns. They are SO GOOD! I must confess to purchasing my first of the year this morning from Bakers Delight and I swear it was smaller than last year. That made me pretty cross!

As someone who had chocolate hot cross buns for breakfast this morning, I’m not complaining.

“I even bought a small pack of eggs the other day (I swear they taste better than block chocolate)”

So true! It’s like a thin slice of cheese always tastes better than gnawing on the whole block like a rat!

Amy Birchall11:18 am 13 Jan 15

bd84 said :

…each year people see it there on 26 December and act surprised about it as if they have never seen it before, feign some sort of outrage that supermarkets would do such a thing, pull some sort of hybrid religious/Easter bunny/think of the children argument, then promptly start filling their basket with Easter eggs and hot cross buns saying “yummy, I wish I could get them all the time because Easter egg chocolate is nicer than normal chocolate and I love hot cross buns with butter”.
.

This is me, every single Easter.

Holden Caulfield9:56 am 13 Jan 15

It’s more surprising that people get surprised by this every year, when it happened the year prior.

Just look at the related content links at the end of the OP. 😉

Easter merchandise has been out on display in the supermarket on Boxing Day for more than 10 years (back in the days when I worked in one), yet each year people see it there on 26 December and act surprised about it as if they have never seen it before, feign some sort of outrage that supermarkets would do such a thing, pull some sort of hybrid religious/Easter bunny/think of the children argument, then promptly start filling their basket with Easter eggs and hot cross buns saying “yummy, I wish I could get them all the time because Easter egg chocolate is nicer than normal chocolate and I love hot cross buns with butter”.

Supermarkets haven’t created this themselves, people have. People like to complain when they can’t get something, which leads to supermarkets and other shops stocking them earlier so they can keep them happy. If there really was such outrage and nobody bought them, they wouldn’t be sold in the shops so early. But people will keep buying them, even if they cost more so they will keep selling them and we will just have the same conversation next year after another bout of amnesia.

Hot cross buns should be available all year round 🙂 That is the issue, when i see them after an 8 month hiatus, I have to have some.
I guess its annoying the shops stock easter items straight after xmas, but you don’t have to buy them.
Its less annoying then christmas stuff in October IMO, but again, you don’t have to buy christmas stuff then either, although i’m a fan of buying xmas gifts earlier rather than later!.

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