Nutella riots: Why shoppers punched, pushed and pulled hair in French supermarkets

What can you do to get a jar of Nutella? In France, the hazelnut-and-chocolate spread sparked a massive food fight in a supermarket with customers punching each other and pulling hair.

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On Thursday, Nutella "riots" spread like wildfire after it was announced that Intermarché, a chain of French supermarkets, had lowered the price of Nutella jars by 70 percent, bringing down the price from €4.50 ($5.59) to €1.40 ($1.74).

The news of the chain store offering hefty discounts caused riots and fights broke out in the supermarket. Soon the police were called in after customers fought to avail the discount.

"They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand," one customer told French media Le Progres.

In one of the stores, a staff member was punched in the eye while trying to stop a fight between customers. Some buyers also kept pushing the staff members.

"People were piling in, they knocked everything over and broke stuff. It was an orgy ... we were on the point of calling the police," a staff member said.

Another staff member said they sold as many jars in one go on Thursday that they usually sell in three months. "They were fighting over it ... at the tills there was only Nutella," the staff said.

Several videos on Twitter and Facebook show customers stamping on each other, pushing each other and shouting as they try to snatch up jars of Nutella. Some supermarkets even restricted the sale to one jar per person.

Meanwhile, Ferrero, the company that makes the chocolate-hazelnut spread, issued a statement saying the company is not responsible for the situation as it was Intermarché's decision to come up with the discount.

"We wish to specify that this promotion was decided unilaterally by the Intermarché brand. We deplore the consequences of this operation that created confusion and disappointment in the minds of consumers," the company said in a statement issued on Twitter.