How Much Sugar Is Really in Easter Eggs?

How Easter eggs hide their sugar

Sugar doesn't always appear as “sugar” on an ingredient list. Manufacturers split it across multiple names — glucose syrup, dextrose, maltodextrin, invert sugar, fructose, malt extract — so that no single sugar source has to appear first in the ingredients. This makes sugar look less dominant than it really is.

Of the 155 Easter eggs we analysed, 56 products use 3 or more different names for sugar. That's over a third of the category actively disguising its sugar content.

Each of these is sugar. By splitting it across 8 names, no single sugar source has to appear near the top of the ingredient list. Without checking every name, you'd never know how much sugar you're really eating.

The highest sugar Easter eggs

The average Easter egg contains 53g of sugar per 100g. But the worst offenders go far higher. Tesco Easter Egg Cookie Kit leads the category at 76.7g — more than three quarters of the product is pure sugar.

For context, the NHS recommends adults consume no more than 30g of free sugars per day. A single 100g serving of the worst Easter egg contains more than 2.5x that limit.

Brand rankings by sugar content

There is a 26.8g gap between the highest and lowest sugar brands. Toblerone averages 60g per 100g. NOMO averages 33.2g — nearly half.

The lowest sugar options

The category average is 53g sugar per 100g. These products come in at less than half that:

The full report includes all 155 products ranked by sugar content, with complete sugar alias breakdowns and brand-by-brand analysis.