by Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 15/98) - Easter is over, but not the chocolate. And if sales are any indication there's plenty of the sweet stuff still floating around.

At Shopper's Drug Mart, owner Daryl Dolynny said sales were the highest he's seen in years.

"We were one of the few retailers that had sufficient quantity of chocolates going into the Easter season and we were quite happy with the sales," said Dolynny on Monday.

Many, many thousands of dollars worth of chocolates stocked the shelves at the Panda mall store last week. "I don't know the figure off-hand but we did bring in heavier-than-normal (stock)," he said.

Traditionally, more than a few retailers have run out over the years so he tends to carry a little heavier stock to accommodate that.

"I probably bumped up my numbers about 20 to 30 per cent this year. I almost had a 100 per cent sell-through."

Sales compare to the early '90s this Easter. "It's a very definite sweet tooth out there especially for Easter," he added.

The depth of product has increased also said Dolynny.

New companies are making chocolate, Hot items this year for instance were a T-Rex chocolate, little truck and trailers made of chocolate.

Sutherland's Drugs on Franklin Avenue is also pleased with the chocolate sales this Easter but some chocolate didn't sell well.

"We brought in the hollow eggs filled with the name-chocolate-bar types. We brought in the solid rabbits and hollow rabbits. The hollow rabbits don't sell that well but they went fairly well. More than 90 per cent of them were sold," said store manager Stephen Gwilliam.

"The thing that didn't go -- and I didn't think it would go that well -- was the Ferrero Roche eggs."

Sutherland's said chocolate sales are not a huge thing for them.

"We realize that the world's largest retailer is going to dominant the segment," said Gwilliam.

Wal-Mart had little difficulty selling its chocolate stock. By late afternoon on Saturday a large selection dwindled down to close to nothing.

A Wal-Mart manager said sales were fairly high.