Dive Brief:
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About 90% of Easter baskets will include candy or chocolate, according to a survey by the National Confectioners Association.
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Seventy-five percent of Americans have shared chocolate or candy with family and friends at Easter.
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When given the choice, 52% of Americans believe chocolate eggs are best filled with cream, caramel or other treats. Thirty-two percent of Americans want their chocolate eggs to be solid, while 16% prefer a hollow chocolate egg.
Dive Insight:
After Halloween, Easter is the nation's biggest candy and chocolate holiday. Those two occasions, plus Valentine's day and the Christmas season, account for some $7.2 billion in sales annually.
Still, consumers are particularly candy-crazy around the Easter holiday. This trend persists even as consumers show a growing preference for healthy foods; they want to eat better but haven't yet lost their appetites for festive sweets. This gives retailers a big opportunity to boost in-store candy sales, especially since Easter is so late this year.
Chocolate eggs have been a popular holiday treat since the 1800s, but manufacturing advances have made it possible for candy makers to push the creativity of their chocolate shapes or what's included inside those creations. This kind of structural innovation continues to be one of the main ways that manufacturers differentiate their brands in one of the most competitive market sectors in the food and beverage industries.
Non-chocolate candy makers also rely on eye-catching novelty to draw consumers to candy shelves - Swedish Fish Eggs and Peeps Easter Milk Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Chicks are just a few products that come to mind. Even the popular Peeps, an iconic candy for the Easter holiday, has been squeezed into a limited-edition Oreo cookie. Products like this are an excellent chance to sell new products and refocus attention on age-old treats.
Grocers can use these last few weeks before the holiday to promote novelty candies with signage and other in-store promotions, drawing in shoppers looking for something sweet to fill their Easter baskets. Retailers also can cross-promote related items like toys, baskets and more to maximize shopper traffic to the candy aisle.