For Greeks, lamb at Easter is what turkey is to Christmas: an intrinsic part of Sunday’s feast; far more important than chocolate eggs or plastic rabbits.
So it is little surprise (especially given the financial difficulties so many families are currently facing) that in the run up to Easter supermarkets compete ferociously to offer the lowest prices on lamb.
Many large supermarkets will sell lamb at, or even below cost in order to lure shoppers into their stores where they will end up making other purchases. While such practices may ultimately end up squeezing profit margins for the producers who rely on Easter for a bump in sales, the news for consumers is better.
According to a study by the Research Institute of Retail Consumer Goods the price of fresh Easter lamb at large supermarket chains is 5.5% lower than it was in 2013, with the average price expected to be about 5.96 euros per kilo (last year it was 6.30 euros). Overall this continues a downward trend with the price of fresh lamb today 25% cheaper than it was in the run up to Easter 2011.
However even given this reduction in prices among all the major chains, the German chain LIDL blew its competition out of the water when it advertised fresh Greek lamb at only 3.99 euros per kilo. Customers reportedly formed long queues outside LIDL outlets hoping to take advantage of the price which seemed too good to be true. It turned out that for most it was.
Even though in its advertising the chain claimed that the offer would be available from last Sunday to this Saturday (the day before Easter), that turned out to only be in theory. From the first day of the sale, consumers were informed that the lamb at the advertised price had sold out and only significantly more expensive meat was available.
According to reports individual stores were said to have had as few as 10 packages of fresh lamb at the ultra-low price, which were sold-out within minutes. Irate customers spoke of false advertising and an abuse of trust.
Many of them contacted the Development and Competition Ministry’s consumer protection branch, prompting it to take action. It has launched an investigation into whether the chain is guilty of deliberately running misleading adverts and demanded the supermarket chain provide figures for the number of units it had intended to sell at the bargain price and whether it will discontinue advertising the offer given that they have already been sold out.
LIDL has since released a statement about the incident, although is rather coy about the particular offer stating only that it plans to sell 190,000 kilos of fresh lamb meat this year, 14 times the amount offered last year. It notably has not given precise figures for how much of this will be sold at the eye-catchingly low price, and how much at more normal rates.