If your idea of self-indulgence is choosing the largest chocolate egg in the supermarket, you haven’t seen anything yet.
A British company is selling “the world’s most extravagant chocolate Easter bunny” – complete with two 1.70 carat brilliant cut diamonds for eyes – for £33,000 (Dh178,797).
The solid chocolate bunny, which weighs around 5kg, is made out of 75 per cent Tanzanian origin chocolate.
It was the brainchild of VeryFirstTo, a company, as its name suggests, that likes to create luxury one-off gifts.
“It came about because we like to do seasonal items,” says Marcel Knobil, who founded VeryFirstTo and Superbrands.
“We frequently find that high net worth individuals tend to feel that there aren’t many [new things] out there and they like to do something special to celebrate occasions. We worked very hard at trying to arrive at a never done before spectacular Easter gift. It is all very easy to dream up something special but then we had to realise it.”
To do that the company secured the services of the award-winning former chef décor of Harrods, Martin Chiffers, to hand-carve the rabbit – a process which took two days.
The diamond eyes were selected by 77 Diamonds, a luxury jeweller which claims to have “unrivalled access” to more than 80 per cent of the world’s diamond market. The G colour gems are worth £25,000 alone.
“Ninety per cent of the cost is the diamonds and then there is the chocolate and it is solid 75 per cent Tanzanian chocolate so it really is tasty, quality chocolate. But in effect it is a very fancy way of buying diamonds,” says Mr Knobil.
In case you are interested in eating it, you will consume 548,000 calories in the process, according to VeryFirstTo.
However, the good news is that you can take your time about it as the bunny can be displayed for up to two years as long as the temperature is kept at 16° or below.
VeryFirstTo has not received any formal offers yet, although it has had queries related to the bunny’s delivery and size.
There will only be one bunny for sale at £33,000, but if you would like to buy one for a lower price, you can swap the diamonds for cheaper gems.
Q&A
Marcel Knobil set up VeryFirstTo to help brands reach so-called “early adopters,” people who like to be the first to have and do things. He speaks here about how the company comes up with ideas and whether anyone actually buys them.
What sort of experiences or gifts have you sold in the past?
Our members love food and they love travel so we offered a trip which enabled one to eat at every luxury three [Michelin star] restaurant around the world. The trip lasted six months and the price included the food but not drink and that was £182,000.
Did anyone buy that? Does anyone buy any of these things or is more for marketing purposes?
Absolutely. Probably our most expensive travel item was a two-year trip visiting world heritage sites. That was £1 million and that was purchased by a Chinese guy.
Do you have customers from the UAE?
Yes we definitely have members from the UAE. It’s not necessarily the most populated of areas but from a percentage [perspective] we have a good number of UAE members … it is probably around 10 per cent [of the overall total].
Do they buy as well? Or are they just members?
No they buy as well, especially when they come over to Europe. It will be experiences as well as items that they are interested in. We deliver around the world and the UAE expresses a good amount of interest in what we do.
business@thenational.ae
