The price of France's Easter chocolate habit revealed
Many French families prefer bunnies and bells to eggs
In France, it is said that church bells fly off to be blessed by the Pope, returning on Saturday evening bearing chocolates and gifts
margouillat photo / Shutterstock
Did you buy chocolate for Easter this month? If so, you likely spent around €19.30, according to research from the Syndicat du Chocolat, which represents around 60 businesses of all sizes involved in producing and selling chocolate in France.
Other than Christmas, Easter is the highlight of the chocolate calendar, with around 15,000 tonnes of chocolate sold around this time.
Unlike most of their neighbouring Europeans, the French have a fondness for chocolat noir (dark chocolate), which represents 30% of the total consumed here, compared to an average of just 5% throughout Europe.
Once you have decided between milk, dark or white chocolate, there is a bewildering number of shapes and designs to choose from.
The classic hollow egg is a perennial favourite, the chicken is a logical associate, and a bunny or sheep are also traditional images of springtime, but you will also see penguins, footballs and pandas. However, these novelty shapes do not outsell the classics.
The consumer intelligence agency, Nielsen IQ France, reports that the top five chocolate items sold last Easter were:
30 x Ferrero Rocher 375g 419 tonnes
Lindt Lapin Or 220g 272 tonnes
Kinder Schoko Bons 200g 229 tonnes
Kinder Schoko Bons 350g 228 tonnes
Jacquot œufs pralinés 594g 182 tonnes
So in France, the most popular Easter chocolate does not even have an Easter theme: it is just a box of 30 Ferrero Rocher chocolates. The golden Lindt bunny in second place is no surprise, it is an iconic product and widely advertised, while the Shocko Bons are at least egg-shaped.
Why does France associate bells with Easter?
If you have lived in France for a while, you will have noticed bells everywhere at this time of year, which in Anglo-Saxon culture are more associated with Christmas. In French tradition, all church bells go quiet as a sign of mourning on Good Friday and do not ring again until Easter Sunday to commemorate the resurrection.
To explain this quiet time, children are told that the bells fly to Rome to be blessed by the Pope, returning on Easter Sunday and bringing with them a bounty of chocolate that is scattered across the countryside as they head home to their steeples.
This explains why the sixth most popular Easter product sold in France is the bell-shaped container of Ferrero Rocher, honouring the Catholic tradition.
