Easter is a key period for Woolies

Poor Easter egg sales over the crucial holiday period have hit overall sales at Woolworths during the first three months of the year.

The Easter period is an important time for the High Street giant which sells more than 20 million Easter eggs a year.

Woolworth's said like-for-like retail sales - which strip out the effects of new store openings - fell by 0.6% in the January to March period.

However, the company said its underlying business remained strong, and if sales of confectionary during the final week before Easter were ignored, like-for-like sales grew by 0.8%.

Mistakes made

Chief executive Trevor Bish-Jones told BBC News Online the poor egg sales were down to a combination of not enough promotion and the hot weather in the run-up to Easter.

"We should have promoted harder," Mr Bish-Jones said.

"During the last three days we put on a 3 for 2 offer - we probably should have done that from the start of the week."

But Mr Bish-Jones said the company had identified cost savings which would offset any loss of revenue from the disappointing Easter egg sales.

"The show stays on the road," he said.

Woolworths was demerged from Kingfisher in August 2001 but spent its early months as a solo firm struggling with overstocking problems.

The company said earlier this year that these had been cured after it reported a profit of �38m, its first since the demerger.