That’s why the new fashion is to weigh the Easter man. But some supermarkets ban it

A Easter Egg with surprise, but without surprises. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s what many are trying to do in these weeks before Easter: discover the contents of the surprise before even purchasing the egg. As? Putting it on the supermarket scale where fruit and vegetables are usually weighed. Just make the difference between the declared weight of the egg (usually 150 grams but there are different sizes) and the overall weight recorded by the scale: the result is the weight of the surprise.

Lists have been circulating on Instagram and Tiktok with a series of surprises – including princesses and Dragon Ball characters – and their relative weight and, between one game and another, the differences are just a few grams. As a result, videos of people trying to verify whether the trick is the right one are multiplying: sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

Easter eggs, the surprise is already on the shelf: rising prices due to the leap in cocoa

by Flavio Bini

March 17, 2024

But some supermarkets have started to take action, banning customers from weighing eggs on their scales. Can they do it? According to Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumers Union who dedicated an Instagram reel to this very issue, “the supermarket has every right to ban it, for hygienic reasons or to avoid creating queues in the fruit and vegetable department”. In fact, scales are point-of-sale tools and the management of the business is free to decide whether and how to use them.

This, however, does not take away the right to weigh the product inside the point of sale. As? Bringing a scale from home. And in supermarkets that have not (yet) established a ban, good advice could be to avoid rush hour to weigh Easter eggs: in a quiet moment, without creating queues, supermarket staff are unlikely to prohibit you. .

Except the trick might not work. Because if it is true that the eggs of the big brands are mass-produced, it is also true that like all foods, there can be small differences in weight between one and the other. Small anomalies that Italian legislation allows within certain limits: for items from 100 to 200 grams the tolerance is 4.5 grams, in excess or in deficiency. Already this small deviation, therefore, could throw off the calculations, given that the differences in weight between surprises can be tiny. In short, you cannot rely on the extra or minus gram to be sure of finding the desired game.

How much chocolate?

More useful, perhaps, is to know that Easter eggs – like all cocoa and chocolate products – must meet certain quality standards. Parameters established by an Italian law (il legislative decree 178 of 2003) which implements European Directive 36 of 2000.

For dark chocolate there must be at least 35% cocoa, at least 18% cocoa butter and, if the label says “superior”, “extra”, “fine” or “very fine” the quantities increase at 43% and 26% minimum respectively. For milk chocolate there must be at least 30% cocoa and 18% milk. The percentage of cocoa is always indicated on the label.