As stomachs settle after a weekend of feasting, Candide McDonald reflects on several standout packaging designs from the Easter season.
Every year at about this time, stores throughout the Western world are filled with egg- and bunny-shaped chocolate packaged in brightly-coloured tinfoil – and there are always a number of standouts.
The Lindt and the Red Tulip bunnies are, of course, Easter stalwarts.
The Lindt bunny has appeared every Easter since 1952, and although Cadbury is not making any “Easter” eggs this year, it has been making egg-shaped chocolates since 1875, and the Red Tulip bunny since the 1980s when it bought the company.
But when it comes to designing Easter chocolates, nothing compares to Monsieur Truffe’s dark chocolate sardines in a raffia-lined basket with clear lids.
Why fish? The Melbourne company would not reveal.
Perhaps we’re meant to guess it's because you're supposed to eat fish on Good Friday?
Maybe it's to make you keep guessing ad infinitum?
Or perhaps it's because when you walk into a shop stuffed to the gills with eggs and bunnies, sardines packed in a box catch your eyes and hold your wonder...
Koko’s black hazelnut praline quail eggs come a close second. The detail is extraordinary, but most of that has gone into speckling the eggs, relegating it to second place.
The teensy candy-coated eggs come in a tiny egg carton, and the illusion is almost perfect.
Prestat has opted for the classic gift box packaging – but has done it so well.
The Hot Cross Bun Spiced version is packaged in a box decorated in chocolate and gold hues with dark chocolate-coloured tissue.
Then, there’s the delight of whimsy. And there is no Easter egg more whimsical this year than Hotel Chocolat’s egg sandwich (in white or dark chocolate), packaged in a traditional sandwich plastic take-away box.
Lastly, there’s the Trump egg. It's not chocolate and it's not packaged. And there's suprisingly not gold ltettering involved. But it was rolled down the South Lawn of the White House on 17 April, as is the tradition in the US.
