A quarter of an Easter egg is just the box!

THE huge boxes have dominated supermarket aisles for weeks – but the Easter eggs inside aren’t always so impressive.

Now researchers have revealed the bitter truth that packaging for some Easter eggs accounts for more than a third of the product’s weight.

Which? looked at ten top-selling eggs and found that, on average, packaging made up a quarter of the total.

Thorntons’ £10 classic large egg was the worst offender, with packaging making up 36.4 per cent of the 418g product. Just 264g was chocolate.

Cadbury’s large Twirl Easter egg had the lowest amount of packaging – but it still made up 18.8 per cent of the weight.

Which? said manufacturers had, however, improved over the past few years when it came to recycling. The only parts of Easter egg packaging that could not be recycled were now chocolate bar wrappers and boxes’ plastic windows.

Despite this progress, Friends of the Earth criticised firms for using ‘unnecessary’ plastic, and called on major firms such as Cadbury, Lindt and Thorntons to phase it out from their eggs by 2019.

Which? also found that disappointment doesn’t end with excessive packaging – for the chocolate inside is often more than double the price compared with buying a bar or family pack. The weight of the chocolate in a £6 Galaxy Indulgent Collection Easter egg is 322g – or £1.86 per 100g. A conventional slab of Galaxy is less than half the price, at 75p per 100g.