‘They are like animals:’ Nutella riots break out at French supermarkets

Grocery stores across France tried to stop customers from getting out of hand, but the deal was just too good: 70 percent off Nutella at Intermarché supermarkets in the country, the BBC reports.

And the French really, really love Nutella — at least if the all-consuming chaos at a handful of stores during the Thursday promotion was any indication. Police even had to be called at one store in northern France, The Local reports, when customers clamoring to get their hands on the dirt-cheap hazelnut spread started fist-fighting.

“They are like animals,” one customer, shopping at a supermarket in the central town of Rive-de-Gier, told Le Progres. “A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box to the head, another had a bloody hand.”

At one store, all of the jars of Nutella in stock had been snapped up within 15 minutes, the newspaper reports.

“We were trying to get in between the customers, but they were pushing us,” an employee at the store in L’Horme, in south central France near Lyon, told Le Progres. The worker added that one customer got a black eye in the melee.

Video posted on social media captured the scene.

The 950-gram jars (or about 33 ounces) usually sell for the equivalent of $5.60. But at 70 percent off, the Nutella at participating supermarkets was going for the equivalent of $1.75, Le Monde reports.

A number of French Nutella-lovers were crafty about ensuring they got their fill of the spread in spite of the high demand.

“Some customers came the night before the promotions to stash the Nutella pots in other places, and thus prevent others from taking them,” Jean-Marie Daragon, who works at a supermarket in central France, told Le Progres.

Other supermarket employees in France said reports of violence during the sale were exaggerated.

The manager of the Rive-de-Gier store told The Local that “there were lots of people, lots of noise, but the reports of violence were surprising to me — they’re not true.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2018 at 8:27 AM with the headline "‘They are like animals:’ Nutella riots break out at French supermarkets."