Coles, Woolworths bring back $20 lobster prices for Easter

Both supermarkets are once again selling the luxury item at a heavily discounted price and comes after a buying frenzy forced strict buying limits last year.

Easter is literally just around the corner and if you’re still stuck on what to serve (no judgment) then leaving it to the last minute might have just worked in your favour.

Coles and Woolworths have bought back its wildly popular Western Australia rock lobster deal, selling the luxury seafood item at the heavily discounted price of $20 a pop.

Both supermarkets ran the same deal last December in the lead-up to Christmas.

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Coles is selling the lobster at a heavily discounted price.

The deal proved so popular with customers that both Coles and Woolies had to impose buying limits, restricting sales to just four per customer.

Now the Western Australia rock lobster is back being sold at Coles for half its traditional price and $5 off its current supermarket price.

Woolies expects to sell 100,000 lobsters in the lead-up to Easter as well as 225,000 oysters.

The lobster and other seafood sold at Coles is expected to total 250 tonnes this Easter, up a whopping 150 per cent on the supermarket’s usual seafood sales.

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Coles predicts it will sell 250 tonnes of seafood this Easter. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Coles is expecting to sell 90,000kg of Tasmanian salmon, 16,000kg of Cone Bay barramundi and 150,000kg of prawns.

The supermarket also predicts it will sell 12 million hot cross buns (recently named the best by Choice) this Easter. That’s on top of the 100 million Coles have sold since Boxing Day last year when they hit shelves amid the usual controversy the day after Christmas.

Last year both Coles and Woolies bought up big on lobster, buying more than needed to help out the fishing industry after stock was rejected by China.

The demand was so high last year both supermarkets had to introduce buying limits. Picture: Reddit

Western Rock Lobster Council CEO Matt Taylor said the market closures in China meant there was an increased supply of the “premium” product for domestic markets.

“Partnering with national retailers to boost local consumption will play an important role in the viability of fishing businesses and their regional communities,” he said.

But within days of launching the lobster sale in stores both supermarkets were forced to introduce buying limits due to “incredible demand”.

The limits prompted some people to joke that lobsters were the new toilet paper, with one person remarking on social media: “2020: The year Australia went from panic buying toilet paper to panic buying lobsters.”