Hungarians traditionally buy more, among other things, ham, eggs and seasonal sweets during the Easter period. The volume of smoked-boiled ham households bought during the 2009 season (the months of March and April) fell, and was typically purchased in hypermarkets and supermarkets. On the basis of Easter ham purchases, the volume share of the two channels exceeded 50%, while a quarter of the volume was sold in small shops.

In addition to the place of purchase, it is interesting to examine what size and packaging the food intended for the festive occasion is bought in. Forty per cent of the smoked-boiled ham volume bought by households came from the delicacies counter and was sold by the kilo. The role of small shops was more significant on the market of smoked-boiled ham sold by the kilo during the Easter season than in the case of ready packed products. A total of 46% of the volume bought by households came from traditional retail channels, while the role of the traditional channels was a lot smaller in the case of ready-packed products.

March-April 2009, breakdown of the smoked-boiled ham volume bought by households by retail channel (%)

Source: GfK Hungária, Consumer Tracking

“Hungarians buy a moderate amount of private label products in the case of Easter ham, their share in the households’ purchases is under 10%. The fact that their average price was almost the same as those of the branded products during the 2009 Easter season also played a part in their low share following a relatively high rise of about 15% in their prices,” said Krisztina Kovács, Manager of GfK Hungária’s Consumer Tracking Sector.

Hungarian households like to buy soft centred chocolates as well during the 2-3 weeks of the Easter period. The month of March is considered a definitely fast period as regards sales: this is the time when the second highest volume of soft-centred chocolates is sold following the Christmas period (November-December). This period is important not only to the companies manufacturing the well-known Hungarian brands, but also to the retail chains: the proportion of private label products has about doubled on the whole soft-centred chocolate market in the last five years.

One in four households bought soft-centred chocolates during this period, and one in three households seasonal sweets (chocolate figures and traditional Easter sweets packages). The households where the age of the housewife is over 50, and those living in cities and the capital were overrepresented among the buyers of Easter chocolate figures.

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