It has been revealed how much Christmas candy we devoured this year and which flavors were our favorites, and you'll be surprised which drink took the lead. And what do you think: did we consume more poppy seed or walnut bejgli?

We were very excited to make our customers happy during the holidays, and as soon as we took a breather (after all-time Kifli order records), we dove into the sea of numbers with our senior trade planning manager, Péter Sárközi, who is also Kifli's chief "data fisherman" in his role as a business analyst. We were interested in what ended up in the baskets the most from the beginning of the holiday preparations – that is, from the traditional November 1st in retail – until December 24th.
 

82% of customers put some kind of Christmas-related product in their basket, covering 61% of purchases. It was understandable that long-lasting products were favored, yet we were surprised that the top 3 categories with the largest number of sales on our Christmas product list were vegetable preserves, carbonated soft drinks, and baby water (in larger categories, soft and energy drinks, preserves, and mineral water).
 

Since this is the absolute peak season for sweets (including Santa Claus before Christmas), we searched for the audience favorite seasonal sweets: the sweet podium included Milka Santa Claus, Milka Sweet Winter, Bonbonetti dark chocolate-coated lemon and orange flavored jelly Christmas candy, as well as Milka Christmas candy selection and Lindt Lindor metal box milk chocolate. The non-seasonal dessert category was won by Sport bar, Tibi dark chocolate, Dörmi sponge cake, Kinder Bueno, and Kinder chocolate.

If we take a closer look at the Christmas candies considered as Hungarikum, it turns out that after the mentioned jelly Bonbonetti, the favorite of Hungarians was the Milka Christmas candy selection, and the bronze medal went to the rum-dark chocolate Sport Christmas candy in 2023. The list was continued by Milka with the following hit flavors: marzipan, hazelnut cream, and Black Forest. Péter Sárközi summarized the big Kifli Christmas candy question: "this year we sold 23,751 boxes of Christmas candy: that's slightly more than 7 tons of Christmas candy, which is approximately the mass of two killer whales. Stacked on top of each other, this amount is more than twice as tall as the Burj Khalifa. However, let's not stack them, let's eat them instead!"

Once we wiped the telltale cocoa marks from the corners of our mouths, we continued our investigation at our butcher counter. It turned out that the meat-fish category winners were soaring fillets and minced meats (the top 5 list is as follows: fresh chicken breast fillet, Prímhús minced pork shoulder, Gallio fresh turkey minced lower thigh fillet, "A" quality fresh chicken breast fillet, and Valdor "A" quality fresh diced chicken breast fillet). Filtering separately for seasonal products, this top list was as follows: Keresztes-Mizse Turkey fresh turkey medallion, Fjoru ASC Atlantic salmon fillet with skin, Fjoru MSC Black cod fillet, organic pork loin without bone, and Panarini rainbow trout fillet – this also shows the well-known fact that fish is more often on the family table during the holidays.

But if we ate so much, we certainly drank too – but let's see exactly what! If we look at the drink category in general, Jana Baby natural non-carbonated mineral water won, followed by Mizse Robocop non-carbonated mineral water multipack, then Jana natural non-carbonated mineral water, Szentkirályi non-carbonated natural mineral water multipack, and Coca-Cola Zero 2-pack multipack won the field in succession. Of course, it's easy for the Kifli folks, as they don't have to carry the heavy family packages home, right? Our analyst continued to investigate the seasonal drink purchases, and concluded that besides Jana Baby, plain Jana non-carbonated water, and Coca-Cola Zero, traditional Coca-Cola triumphed. Among alcoholic beverages, Peroni quality light beer took the lead, among fruit juices, Sió Peach Nectar, and among energy drinks, Hell Energy Drink Zero.

And of course, it wouldn't have been Christmas without surprises, so this year we saved many gift-idea-less shoppers from aimless mall wandering. Our top three best-selling gift packages were edible (Mendula Christmas package, MMM Christmas duo package, FJK Christmas oil and olive selection), while the fourth and fifth places in the imaginary ranking were classic but sophisticated beauty care packages (Ziaja Men gift package, Rituals -The Ritual of Sakura gift set).

Finally, we wanted to settle the ancient debate that concerns everyone, namely whether poppy seed or walnut bejgli is closer to the Hungarian soul, but despite counting twice, the result was shocking: it was a tie, meaning Kifli folks bought almost the same amount of both flavors this year.

We hope the holidays were pleasant for all our dear customers, and thank you for choosing us again this year!