Here's a news flash: Brits are in love with chocolate. They have been for over 300 years, ever since the first British chocolate factory opened in 1657. And today, the average Briton eats a whopping 9.5 kilograms of chocolate a year.
The love hits a high point at Easter. 10 per cent of our annual spending on chocolate happens in the Easter holiday period, with nearly 80 million chocolate eggs sold each year in the UK.
That puts us in fourth place in world league tables for per capita chocolate consumption, just behind Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.
The religious origins of the Easter festival seem to have got a bit lost. A survey last year found that 28 per cent of children aged 8-15 think the hare and the tortoise feature in the Easter story.