Easter Egg Plus A Box Please!
It's almost Easter Egg time! One egg for every family member is my usual approach, with a similar size and type for everyone to avoid arguments about who has the biggest, the tastiest or the most colourful. A sensible approach when it means an expense that has to be carefully managed. However, what I haven't planned for this year is the cost of the egg's packaging. What am I talking about, I hear you say!
Year on year the size of the huge Easter egg boxes that dominate the supermarket aisles get bigger and bigger, yet the egg inside seems to diminish in size. Now researchers have revealed the bitter truth that the packaging for some Easter eggs accounts for more than one third of the product's weight. Customer watchdog 'Which?' have taken ten top-selling Easter eggs and found that on average packaging made up a quarter of the total. The worst product was Thorntons' £10 classic large egg with the box making up 36 per cent of the 400g product - only 264g was chocolate! Cadbury's large Twirl egg had the lowest amount of packaging, but it still made up almost 20 per cent of the weight.
On the bright side, Which? have said that manufacturers of Easter eggs have improved the recycling aspect of their egg packaging over the last few years. The only parts of the box that could not be recycled were now the chocolate bar wrappers and the package's plastic windows. However, it seems that Friends of the Earth want more - criticising firms for using unnecessary plastic and they have called on Cadbury, Lindt and Thorntons to phase it out completely by 2019. Let's hope they do!
But hold on here - Which? also reports that Easter egg disappointment doesn't just stop at the excessive packaging, for the chocolate inside is often more than double the price compared with buying a bar. (We must have always suspected this!) The weight of chocolate in a £6 Galaxy Easter Egg is 322g or £1.85 per 100g. A conventional slab of Galaxy is half the price at 75p per 100g.
I think I'll give Easter eggs a miss this year and buy everyone a bar of chocolate instead!
Year on year the size of the huge Easter egg boxes that dominate the supermarket aisles get bigger and bigger, yet the egg inside seems to diminish in size. Now researchers have revealed the bitter truth that the packaging for some Easter eggs accounts for more than one third of the product's weight. Customer watchdog 'Which?' have taken ten top-selling Easter eggs and found that on average packaging made up a quarter of the total. The worst product was Thorntons' £10 classic large egg with the box making up 36 per cent of the 400g product - only 264g was chocolate! Cadbury's large Twirl egg had the lowest amount of packaging, but it still made up almost 20 per cent of the weight.
On the bright side, Which? have said that manufacturers of Easter eggs have improved the recycling aspect of their egg packaging over the last few years. The only parts of the box that could not be recycled were now the chocolate bar wrappers and the package's plastic windows. However, it seems that Friends of the Earth want more - criticising firms for using unnecessary plastic and they have called on Cadbury, Lindt and Thorntons to phase it out completely by 2019. Let's hope they do!
But hold on here - Which? also reports that Easter egg disappointment doesn't just stop at the excessive packaging, for the chocolate inside is often more than double the price compared with buying a bar. (We must have always suspected this!) The weight of chocolate in a £6 Galaxy Easter Egg is 322g or £1.85 per 100g. A conventional slab of Galaxy is half the price at 75p per 100g.
I think I'll give Easter eggs a miss this year and buy everyone a bar of chocolate instead!
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