Cadbury, Darrell Lea, Coles and Woolworths: Which mini chocolate Easter egg is best?

Mini Easter eggs are essential at this time of year. Not only are they a requirement for a rewarding Easter egg hunt, but they’re also a small sweet treat you can enjoy without too much guilt. 

After all, they’re only tiny, right? And it’s easy to ignore the fact that you’ve eaten 10 of them in one sitting. That’s guilt-free indulgence in our books. 

With lots of different chocolate mini egg options on our supermarket shelves, we set out to find out which product wins on flavour.

And the winner is…

In a clear victory, the Cadbury eggs received the highest number of votes – 20 of the 27 tasters chose it as their favourite. Coles was next with six votes, Woolworths received one vote and there were no votes for the Darrell Lea eggs. 

In judging, more than one taster described the Darrell Lea option as chalky, saying it didn’t melt in the mouth as well as some of the others, though another judge thought it was quite creamy. The Woolworths option also didn’t earn much praise, with one taster describing it as “dusty”. 

The Coles eggs were described as “pretty good” and one of our tasters thought they were “the fanciest” of the lot.

But it was the Cadbury eggs that unequivocally earned the most praise. Judges said these eggs had a nice, consistent sweetness and a pleasant flavour. 

More than one taster identified it as the Cadbury variety straight away and noted that the familiarity was a deciding factor for them. 

Mini-egg prices compared

When it comes to cost, it’s hard to compare apples with apples, or even eggs with eggs, because pack sizes vary. We purchased the largest bag of each egg variety available at the time of purchase to secure the best unit price. 

Here are the results ordered from lowest to highest unit price.

• Coles 500g bag costs $10 ($2/100g)
• Woolworths 150g bag costs $5 ($3.33/100g)
• Cadbury 440g bag costs $16 ($3.64/100g)
• Darrell Lea 110g bag costs $7.50 ($6.82/100g)

What’s in your chocolate egg?

Looking at ingredients, all of the eggs in our test had the same amount of cocoa solids (28%). Milk solids varied, with the Cadbury and Darrell Lea varieties including 24% of milk solids, while the Woolworths eggs contained 18% and the Coles 15.5%. Sugar, emulsifiers and flavours (mostly vanilla) were also present in all the eggs.

Most surprising was the presence of various nuts in the Woolworths eggs. Peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts and macadamia nuts were all listed in the ingredients panel. All the other eggs included a “may contain” warning about different nuts and other allergens, but Woolworths was the only product that included nuts in the ingredients list.

Cadbury, Darrell Lea and Woolworths eggs were all made in Australia, but the Coles eggs were packed in Italy.

How ethical are these eggs?

Cocoa farming, most of which takes place in West Africa, has a long history of environmental devastation and the use of child labour, among other concerns. Many brands make reassuring claims about their sourcing policies, but there are no easy answers to the question of ethics in cocoa supply chains

All the eggs we included feature some sort of claim to suggest ethical behaviour. Darrell Lea features a logo for Cocoa Horizons, Cadbury promotes its link to Cocoa Life and both Woolworths and Coles declare Rainforest Alliance certification. 

Despite this, the researchers and advocates working to improve the ethics of cocoa farming acknowledge that the problems are complex, and defining what constitutes ethically sourced chocolate is not straightforward.

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Margaret Rafferty

Margaret Rafferty joined CHOICE in 2018 as a Content editor and since then has filled the roles of Commissioning editor, Managing editor and now Editorial consultant. Margaret has written on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. With over 20 years of media experience, Margaret brings a strong storytelling background to CHOICE. She works closely with people across the organisation to help tell stories that make a positive difference to people and is passionate about uncovering bad practices and helping Australians to avoid falling victim to shonky products and services. Find Margaret on LinkedIn.

Margaret Rafferty joined CHOICE in 2018 as a Content editor and since then has filled the roles of Commissioning editor, Managing editor and now Editorial consultant. Margaret has written on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. With over 20 years of media experience, Margaret brings a strong storytelling background to CHOICE. She works closely with people across the organisation to help tell stories that make a positive difference to people and is passionate about uncovering bad practices and helping Australians to avoid falling victim to shonky products and services. Find Margaret on LinkedIn.