French Nutella lovers are reportedly coming to blows in supermarkets after a massive discount on the chocolate-hazelnut spread led to scenes compared to riots.
Police had to be called to one store on Thursday, after supermarket chain Intermarche slashed the price of Nutella jars, from €4.50 (£3.94) to €1.40 (£1.23) - a discount of 70%.
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Stunned bystanders uploaded videos showing scenes of pandemonium at several stores, with customers arguing and shoving one another in a frantic bid to grab jars of Nutella.
“This isn’t normal!” says a woman filming one such clash, as shouting shoppers scramble to get to pallets of the spread laid out on the floor of the store. “I’m getting out of here!”
“Fist fights” broke out in several stores, reports Le Parisien, dubbing the phenomenon “Nutella madness”.
A particularly heated clash at a supermarket in Ostricourt, northwest France, required intervention from gendarmes.
“They went for one another like animals,” one customer, who witnessed a scuffle at a store in the Loire region, told local newspaper Le Progres. “One woman had her hair pulled… another woman’s hand was bleeding. It was awful.”
Ferrero, the company which owns the Nutella brand, said in a statement that the special offer was entirely the decision of Intermarche and that it deplored reports of “confusion and disappointment”.
Intermarche has declined to comment. However, from a financial standpoint, the promotion appears to have done its job. Employees at one store in central France told The Local that they had sold 700 pots of Nutella in 45 minutes.
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