Mountains of pav, fields of strawberries beckon Kiwis

New Zealanders’ love for the pavlova is through the roof — with appetites for our national dessert set to munch into the equivalent of 31 times the height of the Sky Tower.

If all the pavlovas that will be eaten over the Christmas holidays were stacked on top of each other, they would reach a height of 10,168m — or three times higher than Mt Cook — according to Countdown merchandise general manager Chris Fisher.

Another sweet treat will also be consumed in large numbers, with Kiwis set to eat our way through 67 rugby fields of strawberries. The fruit is also the top product sold at Countdown supermarkets.

“Our love affair with strawberries at this time of year is partly because of their versatility across the Christmas menu, whether that’s fruit salad, a plain fresh strawberry after a heavy meal, chocolate dipped for dessert, as part of a cheese platter, at the bottom of a champagne glass and of course on top of the long- standing Christmas favourite, pavlova with cream,” Fisher said.

Our appetite doesn’t stop there, with Christmas revellers also expected to go through 34 milk tankers worth of cream, and the equivalent of 326 Mini Coopers in ham.

Cherries are another favourite, with the amount we go through over the holidays equivalent to that grown on 10ha of cherry trees.

Turkeys are not spared from our ravenous festive rampage, with 690,000 servings set to be eaten this Christmas.

“I think it’s really interesting that while we tend to look for more convenience and ways to save time with food during other times of the year, at Christmas, when we’re often really busy, we still want to make our favourite meals from scratch,” Fisher said.

“Some of the biggest- selling products in the last week before Christmas are the ingredients for Christmas cake and trifle, strawberries, eggs and cream as well as a lot of wrapping paper.”

Vanilla and French vanilla are the most popular choices for icecream, and sweet corn and asparagus dethrone the usually dominant broccoli for the most popular vegetable.

The daily sale of salmon and prawns over the last week before Christmas are almost double.

Most people are organised when it comes to their Christmas shopping, with over half starting a month or a few weeks before December 25. But a quarter of people find themselves scrambling in the last precious hours of Christmas Eve.