Christmas without Chocolate – it’s almost unthinkable isn’t it?
Whether it’s to gift, to share or simply enjoy for yourself, chocolate is a staple of the festive season. However, here at MuscleFood we’ve been digging into this further and it seems that people might not eat as much chocolate over Christmas as first thought.
Did you know that on average we eat ONLY half a tub of chocolate over Christmas period?! That’s right. We’ve asked the hardworking elves around MuscleFood towers how much chocolate they get through during Christmas and on average it’s just half a tub’s worth.
Whether it’s selection boxes, sharing tubs, gourmet bars or cakes, chocolate is everywhere at this time of year and the temptation to gorge on its cocoa deliciousness is one that’s hard to fight! According to BrandonGaille, the average Brit will get through around 24 pounds of chocolate per year – in 2017 this was discovered to be 8.4kg of chocolate eaten per head! Chocolate is the number one Christmas gift for UK consumers and in 2017 the majority of them (53%) expected to be given some form of chocolate as a gift.
At Christmas, with the vast choice of food on offer – aside from the traditional Christmas dinner – including savoury nibbles and sweet treats, it’s easy to overindulge. Perhaps this explains why we’re less likely to reach for the chocolate – we’re too full from all the food and drink we’ve scoffed!
At Christmas, it’s tempting to gorge on foods you wouldn’t normally eat at any other time of year. Stuffed full of the foods of the season, that bar of chocolate might be too much to handle. What’s more, sales of luxury chocolate increase around Christmas, with many consumers opting for top of the range items to treat themselves or to give as gifts.
You’re more likely to take your time eating this chocolate than you would say, your everyday bars you can pick up in your local store!
Consider too the sheer volume of food AND the different kind of foods we get through during December… For example, 370 million mince pies will be sold in the UK over Christmas and on average, a Brit eats 27 mince pies per year.
Research from VoucherBox.co.uk revealed that 1240 Christmas puddings will be eaten every 60 seconds and Brits will eat up to 10,000 mince pies per minute. That’s a lot of pies! 300 million mince pies are eaten over Christmas in the UK, so it’s no surprise we’re going to struggle to fit Chocolate in on top of that!
In 2017 alone, it was expected that UK shoppers would spend a record £4.2 billion on food and drink in the final week before Christmas – think of all the turkey, sprouts, mince pies and puddings people are buying with that.
So, perhaps it’s not all that surprising we don’t binge ourselves on Chocolate at Christmas as much as we’d expect.
Now…where’s that tub of Heroes?
