Never mind how you eat yours – how much do you pay for yours? During our Easter bargain-hunting we found price differences in Creme Eggs that left us scratching our heads to work out which ones were cheapest.
I don’t usually buy Easter eggs – I don’t have children, and most of my friends would rather I shout them a pint than hand them a pile of chocolate. But occasionally I like to jazz up a party, and I thought that my next one might benefit from an Easter egg hunt.
So how do I get the best value on a box of Creme Eggs? Well, I should just buy the biggest box, right? Not necessarily.
I’m happy to spend some time hunting down the special offers, but at Easter time things seem to get even more bewildering. It’s not just a case of comparing prices, but comparing different deals to see where you get the most chocolate for your cash.
Per egg or per 100g?
It would be easy enough for me to compare costs if everything was priced per 100g – I’d just pick the box of eggs with the lowest unit price and then get as many as I needed. But when Which? went to some supermarket websites to have a look, we discovered it wasn’t quite that easy – some eggs were priced up individually, and for others we were given the price per 100g.
On top of that, I had to work out if I was better off taking a ‘3 for 2’ offer, or whether I should go for the ones that told me I’d ‘save £1’ (neither of these offers had the unit price displayed for the promotional price). From Waitrose it worked out better to buy eggs in packs of six than in packs of 12 – which wasn’t immediately obvious and fought against my instinct to bulk-buy.
In Asda, they charged the same for 12 eggs bought individually as 12 eggs in a bulk pack, which makes sense to me. But then looking at the unit price, they appeared to be wildly different – single eggs were labelled with a unit price of £1.22 per 100g, and 12 packs had a unit price of 84.2p per 100g.
A cracking headache
I know my calculations might be more than your average person would bother doing (I am now the proud owner of a ‘Creme Egg prices’ spreadsheet) but I think it shows how useful it would be for us if supermarkets adopted a consistent unit pricing plan.
Which? is currently campaigning for clearer food unit pricing, which means that squinting at labels and whipping out a calculator in the supermarket could be a thing of the past. We’d like to see supermarkets pricing things clearly and simply – if all food displays the unit price per 100g, these comparisons become much easier.
If you agree, please do sign up and support our unit pricing campaign – we’ll be talking to supermarkets about this later this year, and we want to show them just how much this small change can help people spot the bargains from the bad deals.
How much is yours?
In the meantime I thought it would be fun to have an egg hunt of our own – can you find the cheapest, or the most expensive Creme Egg?
We’re offering a £20 John Lewis voucher to whoever spots the best and worst value eggs. It’s a bit tricky to work out – some are priced singly, without the unit price. Others show the unit price, but not for special offers, so you might need to do a bit of mental arithmetic!
Going purely on the price per 100g, can you find a stunning bargain (or a really bad deal) at your local supermarket? Send us a picture of your Creme Egg deal to which.campaigns@which.co.uk by noon on 12 April, along with the name of the shop where you found them, and we’ll give a voucher to the best and worst value discoveries.
Which? Conversation Easter competition terms and conditions
1. The prize draw is open to UK residents aged 18 or over. Only one entry per person. Employees, their immediate families or anyone connected with Which? are not eligible to enter.
2. The closing date is noon on 12 April 2012.
3. There is no alternative prize but which reserves the right to substitute a prize of equivalent value at its discretion . In the event of a tie, the winners will be drawn at random.
4. The winner will be notified by email by 13 April 2012.
5. The winner must claim their prize within 14 days of being contacted. Proof of entering the competition will not be accepted as proof of receipt.
6. If the prize is declined or forfeited, Which? may at its absolute discretion draw an alternative winner.
7. The name of the winners and the photographs showing the price will be published on Which? Conversation by 20 April 2012. Which? reserves the right to feature details of the winner in future publications or promotions.
8. The promoter is: Which? Limited, 2 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 4DF.
9. By entering the prize draw entrants will be deemed to have understood and accepted the above terms and conditions.
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