These are the most popular products during the Christmas period

It is not a surprise that the merchants feel like in heaven in December, as we bought a large amount of stuff as a result of the celebrations right after each other.  Of course, the second most important Christian celebration after Easter carries the most of the weight in terms of both food and articles. It wouldn’t be hard to notice the change in the yearly consumption of certain things if the day of Santa Claus, or the last party of the year, were suddenly cancelled. Index collected the most holiday-dependent products on the food market.

The Hungarian Trade Association’s calculations are based on this year’s data that in December. HUF 90-95 billion more is spent on food than in any average month. But this amount of money is not segmented equally; some products are bought in such big amounts during the holidays that their consumption during this time comes to much more than the balanced yearly turnover.

We eat fish, at least, on Christmas

Everyone knows well how little amount of fish Hungarians eat, but it has to be repeated again: Hungarians eat few fish at an international level, although many studies have proved the beneficial effects of fish compared to meat. It comes from the Hungarian fish-eating habits being under the frog that December brings the important part of the yearly consumption, because there is a tradition for fish soup and fried catfish at Christmas for some reason.

The last month of the year performs so much over the average that, according to the data of GFK, 37% of the yearly consumption in 2014 and 2015 was in December. An average Hungarian ate 5.1 kilograms of fish last year.

Chocolate Santa takes all

Compared to the fish, the majority likes sweets and eats them all year round and, because of that, it is also ideal as a gift, so its consumption in the last month was way more than the yearly average. Sweets from the stores are not perishable, so people can start purchasing them early and the November-December consumption is worth to be looked at together in the case of these products.

According to the data of Nielsen, we bought 656 tons of sweets for HUF 3.4 billion for Santa Clause’s day last year (6th December), which broke every previous record, and it does not contain the Szaloncukor-consumption (Christmas fondant). The most popular item for the 6^th of December is the traditional chocolate Santa, 432 tons were sold for more than HUF 2 billion last year. Therefore the Santa itself got 63% from the sweets market, while the snowman, reindeer, bogeyman etc. got altogether 10%. After Santa Claus the second most popular items were the traditional giftsets meaning some chocolate figures in a see-through plastic bag.

People bought traditional Hungarian Chocolate fondant for about HUF 6 billion last year and the whole sweets turnover, in connection to the holidays at the end of the year, came to HUF 10 billion in one and a half month.

The goose is slowly catching up with the carp