Confectioners take advantage of the rise in the price of Easter eggs in supermarkets and gain clientele with personalized products and more at an affordable price | Economy

With sky-high prices, handmade Easter eggs are an alternative to maintaining tradition

While children are attracted to the colorful packaging of Easter eggs displayed in supermarket aisles across the country, what has caught the attention of adults is the price.

A study carried out by Horus, a market intelligence company, shows that, depending on the weight and brand of the egg, the price increase reaches 26% this year, when compared to 2023.

The increase seen is greater than that recorded from 2022 to 2023, when the price of Easter eggs accumulated an average increase of 0.4%.

Despite the rise in price, a survey carried out by the Datacenso group, in partnership with the Federation of Commercial and Business Associations of the State of Paraná (Faciap), revealed that 54% of consumers in Paraná intend to buy Easter gifts this year. More than half (64%) should invest in chocolate eggs.

Among the main factors that influence when choosing a gift, 46% listed the quality of the product, while 35% indicated “prices and offers”.

Bruna Lara, aged 29, is the mother of two girls, one aged 7 and the other aged 9. She says that to avoid the high price and guarantee tradition in the family, she chose to order handmade Easter eggs.

For Bruna, who is a businesswoman and lives in Colombo, in the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba (RMC), in addition to being more affordable, “the eggs from pastry chefs are much more attractive, more beautiful and tastier than those from the market”.

“You will pay R$100 for an egg that is a chocolate shell and has two chocolates inside, [enquanto] There is a baker who sells eggs gourmet at R$80, R$90 which are much tastier”, he explains.

For almost 40 years, Rose Petenucci has been working in the confectionery business and producing Easter eggs in Curitiba.

From her own experience, the confectioner noticed that artisanal eggs have become more popular in the last ten years and, according to her, demand increases every Easter.

“It has grown a lot, because there is the issue of price. We are able to work with a fairer price”, he explains.

The price of Rose’s eggs varies between R$25 and R$110. In addition to choosing to use higher quality chocolates, the confectioner also works with personalized, hand-carved fillings and decorations.

According to Rose, because they are more natural eggs, that is, without preservatives and with fresh raw materials, people identify with the order and create an even more special value for the final product.

“We made an egg with banana filling and today the lady said: ‘My God, this egg is wonderful. It tastes like my grandmother’s banana jam’. So, that’s what we try to work on. Mixing banana filling banana, which is not that expensive, but which you can transform into a product with flavor and a certain refinement. Consequently, we pass this on in the price.”

For the confectioner, artisanal eggs offer a variety and care that an industrial scale cannot guarantee.

Danieli de Fátima Bill Hainosz and her husband, Adilson Bill Hainosz, also produce handmade Easter eggs.

Residents of Colombo, at RMC, she says that, in addition to the issue of price, the search for the product is also due to the possibility of the customer choosing the egg exactly the way they want.

With the problem that many children prefer industrialized Easter eggs because of the toy inside them, and not necessarily because of the chocolate, Danieli started to invest in the production of eggs with children’s decorations.

According to Adilson, the most requested characters are Spider-Man, mermaid and unicorn.

“The kids really like Hulk, but he disappeared this year,” says the freelancer.

The confectioner’s care for the product is thought of in detail. She reports that to maintain the quality of the product, she tries to deliver the eggs as fresh as possible. Therefore, it does not produce without a prior order.

However, many customers end up leaving their order in the last few days before the date. In these cases, the couple tries to find a way.

“There was a year when my daughter wanted her nest with Nutella, so I made hers. I said: ‘daughter, your egg is ready, okay? So, tomorrow you get it’. THEN a client called and ‘Dani , do you have anything?’, then I said: ‘Daughter, I sold your egg, I’m going to make another one for you’. Then someone else called… I think I made about six eggs for her that year’, jokes Danieli. ‘She He got about six Easter eggs, but I think he only ate one’, adds Adilson.

Danieli and Rose represent family business professionals who were positively impacted by the rise in the price of eggs from major brands.

According to the Economic Research Institutes Foundation (FIPE), the main reason for this significant increase comes from cocoa production.

In an interview with RPCMarcelo Pereira, Technical Analysis Supervisor at FIPE, explains that climate effects in Africa have reduced cocoa production, leading to an increase in international prices.

“What we can say is that 60% of the cocoa that is produced in the world comes from West Africa and it is exactly in this region that is being affected by climate effects. So, this ends up directly affecting the final price of the Easter egg”, says Marcelo.

With the increase in the price of raw materials, the investment in the differential has yielded results in artisanal productions.

For next year, Danieli wants to specialize in restrictive recipes – lactose-free, gluten-free and vegan, for example – so that he can also offer them to a larger audience.

“This year there was a lot of demand, but as I didn’t have any course yet, I chose not to work, but I want to specialize in this area too. I saw that this demand is also big, for ‘healthier’ eggs, with less sugar , less fat”, he concludes.

*in collaboration with Caroline Maltaca, digital products assistant.