Nutella "riots" have spread across France after a supermarket chain there offered the product for 70 percent off. Things got so bad the police had to be called in.
Intermarché supermarkets offered the delicious hazelnut chocolate spread for to €1.40, or the equivalent to $1.75, from its usual price of €4.50, or $5.60, the BBC News reported on Thursday. That apparently was too good of deal for some, with the deal leading to people jostling each other to get to the Nutella.
Local French media described scenes across the country as "riots," as people began fighting and pushing each other to each some of the last Nutella jars, the BBC said.
"They are like animals," one customer at the Rive-de-Gier supermarket in central France told LeProgres, according to The Local France. "A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand. It was horrible."
The BBC said 805 million pounds of Nutella are eaten every year globally. The spread was invented by the Ferrero family in the 1940s in the Piedmont region of Italy, which is best known for its hazelnuts.
One customer video recorded "Nutella fever" at one French store.
Police responded to a call from a supermarket in Ostricourt when customers fought over the remaining items, The Local said. That scene played out in Roubaix in the Nord department, as well as Wingles and Marles-les-Mines in Pas-de-Calais.
Staff at a branch in the Loire department told LeProgres, according to The Guardian, that the sale was "a catastrophe." Another employee at a different store said: "We need another system."
Other stores set a three-jar limit for each customer in order to prevent more fights from breaking out, The Local said.
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