Let the festive feasting begin as mince pies and Christmas puddings hit shelves amid heatwave

Northern Lincolnshire may be basking in an early September heatwave but it is decidedly more “cool Yule” in some supermarkets.

While temperatures hover around the mid to high 20s, and shoppers duck into stores for a refreshing blast from the air-conditioning, they might also want to start stocking up on their Christmas goodies – so long as they don’t feel daft standing at the checkout in shorts and flip-flops while loading the conveyor with mince pies, Christmas puddings and family-size tubs of chocolates. How to get them home without them melting might be the question in some early Christmas shoppers’ minds.

Stocking up now and spreading the cost of the coming festivities will be considered by some people to be a wise move; others will think it far too soon to be contemplating a Christmas stock-up before their children even have chance to make it back into the classroom after the summer holiday.

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Judging by a recent Grimsby Live poll, most people will be giving the festive food aisle a swerve for now. We asked readers if they felt it was too early for shops to be stocking Christmas items and the overwhelming majority said it was, with 79 per cent of votes being against the move and 21 per cent for it.

Whether you agreed or not, everything from tree decorations to gift ideas is starting to nudge the sun cream and sunglasses along to fill up shelves in stores now. Morrisons, Iceland, Sainsbury’s and Tesco are among those starting to stock festive food lines.

Morrisons posted on Twitter a couple of days ago: “Mince pie season is upon us” after a customer uploaded a photograph of a Morrisons store Christmas aisle chockful of goodies, including Christmas cakes, festive biscuits, sweets and boxes of mince pies. One Twitter user said: “Some of the hottest weather of the year coming up but @Morrisons have us covered with mince pies and stollen!!”

Iceland has also joined in, with stacks of mince pies seen in store, according to a tweet today from the UK’s biggest Christmas website, UnderTheXmasTree. It said: “Mince pies have landed In store at @IcelandFoods and they look soo tasty! Anyone had a mince pie yet this year?”

Another Twitter user posted an image of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference mince pies on the shelves, saying: “Barely September, and not only are the mince pies on the shelves, they’re already on offer.” Tesco was helping to steal an early march on mince pie sales, with one less-than-impressed customer tweeting: “This was Tesco at lunchtime today. Yes. Full Christmas selection including mince pies and stollen. #unnecessary.”