How Europe shops for Easter: foodora reveals four years of consumer trends across five markets

New data from foodora across Austria, Sweden, Norway, Czechia and Hungary shows Europeans love for Easter: they are all in for milk chocolate, prefer fresh vegetables, and shop at the last minute, with discounts following suit.

foodora, one of Europe’s leading delivery platforms, today publishes Easter trends, drawing on four years of aggregated order data from 2022 to 2025 across Austria, Sweden, Norway, Czechia and Hungary.

The data covers consumer preferences across chocolate type, chocolate weight, meat choices, vegetable selection, timing of purchases, and the role of discounts, painting a detailed picture of how five European nations stock up for the Easter holiday.

01 — CHOCOLATE PREFERENCES

Milk chocolate dominates, but white and dark are on the rise

Across all five markets, milk chocolate remains the undisputed Easter favourite, accounting for 91% of all chocolate sold through the years with a small shift toward both white and dark varieties over the years.

White chocolate has nearly doubled its share since 2022, growing from 3.4% to 6.9% of total sold quantity. Dark chocolate has also grown, from 2.5% in 2022 to 5.1% in 2025.

Overall:

milk chocolate dominates at 91.4% share over the years, with white chocolate at 5% and dark chocolate at 3.7%.

In 2025:

of chocolate sold in 2025 was milk chocolate 88%

white chocolate share in 2025 (up from 3.4% in 2022) 6.9%

dark chocolate share in 2025 (up from 2.5% in 2022) 5.1%

02 — CHOCOLATE FORMAT & WEIGHT

Shoppers go smaller: the rise of the 0–50g impulse buy?

One of the clearest structural shifts in the data is the move toward smaller chocolate formats. The 0–50g weight category: typically small chocolate bars, individually wrapped eggs, and pick-and-mix pieces, has grown from 24.6% of sold quantity in 2022 to 34.5% in 2025. It is now the single largest weight category.

By contrast, the 51–100g category, which was previously the top segment, has declined from 34.0% in 2022 to 29.1% in 2025 over the same period. Larger formats (151–200g) have also lost share, dropping from 23.2% to 14.5%. This consistent shift toward lighter, smaller products suggests that customers are increasingly purchasing Easter chocolate as small and potentially impulse additions to the grocery baskets rather than as centrepiece gifts.

Overall:

0–50g chocolates (30.2%) and 51–100g chocolates dominate (31.5%)

In 2025.

share of 0–50g chocolates in 2025 (up from 24.6% in 2022) 34.5%

decline in the 51–100g segment since 2022 −8.7pp

decline in the 151–200g segment since 2022 −8.7pp

03 — EASTER MEAT CHOICES

Ham leads, but chicken is closing the gap

When it comes to the main Easter meal, foodora looks at different meats and ham seems to be the most popular protein across foodora’s European markets. In 2025, just over half of all meat customers — 52.5% — chose ham. However, chicken has fluctuated over the years but emerged as a strong second choice between 2024 and 2024: from 35.2% in 2024, chicken now accounts for 46.8% of all Easter meat customers in 2025. In markets like Hungary, chicken has the higher share with 55.4%

Veal and lamb remain niche choices, together accounting for only around less than 1 % of the orders. In Sweden, prinskorv (small pork sausages, a traditional accompaniment) appeared in the data, though at a small volume.

Overall:

Ham is the favorite meat of choice ~ 54% with chicken following closely with ~ 47%

of meat buyers chose ham in 2025 52.2%

chose chicken — up from 35.2% in 2024 46.8%

combined share of veal, lamb and other specialty meats <1%

04 — VEGETABLES: FRESH VS FROZEN

Fresh vegetables are a clear and growing preference

Across all markets and years, fresh vegetables overwhelmingly dominate over frozen alternatives. In 2025, 85.2% of vegetable buyers chose fresh produce, a proportion that has held remarkably steady since 2022 (83.2%) despite the broader inflationary environment that might have been expected to boost frozen sales.

Frozen vegetables, while growing in absolute numbers alongside overall platform growth, have not gained meaningful share — remaining at around 14–17% each year. The data also shows that chopped vegetable formats remain a negligible portion o\f orders, with whole vegetables strongly preferred.

of vegetable buyers chose fresh produce in 2025 85.2%

consistent frozen vegetable share across all four years ~15%

05 — SHOPPING TIMING & DISCOUNTS

Europeans shop late, and that is when the deals land

Perhaps the most commercially significant finding in the data concerns when Europeans choose to shop for Easter. Order volumes across the 14-day window leading up to Easter Sunday show a clear last-minute concentration: the two highest single-day order totals occur at day −2 and day −3 before Easter Sunday.

Day −8 (the Saturday of the week before Easter) also spikes, reflecting a mid-window planning trip. But the dominant pattern is unmistakable: the majority of Easter purchases happen in the final three days before the holiday, with combined volumes at day −3, −2 and −1 significantly outpacing the earlier days in the window.

Discount behaviour follows the same pattern. Across the four-year dataset, promotional orders spike sharply in the last three days before Easter, suggesting that retailers and foodora’s commercial partners time their discount offers to align with — and amplify — the natural last-minute surge in demand. On average overall, the discount ratio is highest from Wednesday through to Good Friday, and until Saturday just before Easter Sunday.

peak order days across all markets and years Day −2 & −3 before Easter Sunday

account for the majority of Easter shopping volume Last 3 days

discount activity peaks in the final days before Easter in 2025 Thurs–Sat

Hungary is notably showing a pronounced spike at day −3, while Norway orders spikes 7 days in advance but the second most popular day is the very Easty Sunday!

About foodora

foodora is a delivery platform, operating in 5 countries in Europe – Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Norway and Sweden. foodora’s mission is to deliver an amazing, fast, affordable experience connecting customers with businesses and riders, giving everyone more time to pursue what matters most to them. foodora delivers a variety of products including groceries, household products and restaurant meals within 60 minutes or less. foodora is part of Delivery Hero, the world’s leading local delivery platform. .

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