Easter Egg shortage at the supermarkets

The shortage appears to have particularly affected Tesco, the country's biggest retailer, which has run out of a number of lines, especially eggs made by Cadbury – the country's biggest chocolate maker – and Nestle, as well as some Lindt and Mars eggs. But other supermarkets, including Asda, and Sainsbury's, were suffering from gaps on shelves, with four days to go until Easter. Asda on Tuesday lunchtime stopped selling any Easter eggs on its website, saying it was prioritising customers who had already placed orders.

The drought in the seasonal treat comes as supermarkets exchange shots in a so-called price war, which has seen the leading chains lower the prices of a number of key products in an attempt to steal customers from rivals. Easter eggs have fallen prey to this tactic, with the great majority discounted or on promotion of some sort.

It comes just a year after the supermarket industry was hit by a similar problem, which forced the big grocery chains to apologise to their customers after many were left wandering the aisles in a desperate search for chocolate eggs on Holy Saturday.

Much of the blame for the shortage has been blamed on the heavy level of discounting. Bryan Roberts, analyst at Kantar Retrail, said: "This is now becoming standard practice. They hit the shelves on Boxing Day and are then on promotion in some way in the run up to Easter, with the lower price points being particularly blitzed." Tesco said it had been running discounts for the eight weeks prior to Easter this year, compared with five weeks last year.

The rise of Aldi and Lidl, the German-owned discounters, has increased competition within the supermarket industry. This Easter both chains – which usually specialise in stocking their own-brands – have started selling branded chocolate, especially Cadbury, piling pressure on rivals. At Aldi, a 149g Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons egg, for instance, is being sold for 99p, helping to set the benchmark for cheap eggs. The poundshops, as well as the discount chains such as Home Bargains, have also started selling significant amounts of cheap chocolate aimed at parents on a budget. One supermarket insider said: "You just can't afford to get out of line on Easter eggs. The moment one breaks cover, you have to lower your prices." In many cases, it is now cheaper to buy a packaged easter egg than a basic chocolate bar -- on a gram per pound basis.

Mr Roberts said: "It is a bit self-defeating. Basic economics would suggest that when demand is at its highest you could chose to price your products as you wish. But supermarkets use Easter eggs discounts as something they can talk about in TV adverts, and as a way of driving traffic. It's because retailers and suppliers are over-obsessed with market share."

In recent months all of the big four supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury's and particularly Morrisons and Tesco – have been struggling to stop customers defecting to the discounters. Most have announced that they would cut prices, in response, with the price of a four-pint bottle of milk, for instance, being cut from £1.39 to £1 at most chains.

However, official inflation figures, published by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday, suggests that despite some items becoming much cheaper, the overall cost of a weekly shop has not fallen for most people. While the Consumer Prices Index for March fell from 1.7 per cent to 1.6 per cent, most of this was down to lower transport costs. Food inflation, on an annual basis, increased a touch to 1.9 per cent. Veggetable prices have declined in recent weeks, helped by heavt discounting of cucumbers, carrots and onions, but the price of meat and fruit has increased, according to the ONS.

A spokesman for Tesco tried to play down any shortages. They said: "You won't go in on Good Friday and find only one egg on the shelves. There will be plenty of eggs," but added: "It's possible we have run out of some of the ranges, in some of the sizes. Quite obviously we are close to Easter and that tends to happen."

A spokesman for Asda said in was only on its website where shoppers would be disappointed. "To ensure no family goes without their eggs, we have put a hold on the ordering of some products online so we can focus on fulfilling our current orders before the weekend.”