This week, Value for Money samples five varieties of kids' easter eggs

Disney Fairies Milk Chocolate Egg, €7.99 for 55g, €145.27 per kg

Highs: This egg comes with an "enchanting purse" and a hanging mobile but, in truth, you would need the skills of a surgeon to cut around the dotted lines with any degree of accuracy and we weren't particularly enchanted by the purse, though it did find its way into the small hands of a two-year-old girl who was quite pleased with it.

Lows: The chocolate egg is surprisingly small for the size of the box – it weighs in at just 55 grams. It is also pretty poor, made as it is with just 14 per cent cocoa solids. We also can't help thinking we paid over the odds – massively over the odds, in fact – for this product simply because the name Disney appears on the box. By any standard it is wildly overpriced.

Verdict: Way too dear

Star Rating:**

Smarties Shaker Egg, €1.99 for 90g, €22.11 per kg

Highs: This deserves special praise for not including any plastic at all in its packaging. It has also gone down the old-school route of having the treats (in this case, Smarties, as you might have guessed) contained within the egg as opposed to being packaged alongside it. The Smarties are perfectly pleasant, as is their wont, and the chocolate is nice and creamy, with a pleasing toffee flavour, and made with 25 per cent cocoa solids. We also liked the fact that we could shake the egg like a maraca.

Lows: While it might appeal to a parent's eco-sensibilities, particularly the message reminding us that chocolate should only be enjoyed as part of a varied, balanced diet, we fear children might be more focused on the actual size of the egg, which is pretty small .

Verdict: Lacks wow factor

Star rating: ***

Cadbury Mini-Eggs, €14.89 for 595g, €25.01 per kg

Highs: Unlike the Smarties Shaker Egg, this one does have the wow factor in spades and if size matters, this will finish top of the pile every single time – few kids wouldn't be wide-eyed upon receipt of this.

Lows: We were a little disappointed with the chocolate on offer here and it wasn't as good as many of the Cadbury eggs we have tasted in the past. We counted seven E-numbers listed amongst the ingredients, which did not endear us to this egg. While its size might be considered a plus, it does mean it generates a whole lot of excess waste.

Verdict:Big and ordinary

Star rating: **

Favorina Easter Bunny from Lidl. €8.99 for 600g, €14.98 per kg

Highs: This is the cheapest of the Easter treats we tried and is significantly better than its price would suggest. The milk chocolate contains 32 per cent cocoa solids – substantially more than any of the competition – and it also contains white and dark chocolate (which at 54 per cent cocoa solids isn't at all bad either). The facial features on this bunny are very detailed and there is surprisingly little hard plastic casing to keep the bunny in place, making it more environmentally sound than the competition. It is also the biggest and chunkiest of the products reviewed.

Lows:It is incredibly sweet and, frankly, there is just too much of it so we fear at least some of this bunny would end up melting in our bin.

Verdict:Great value

Star rating: *****

Marks and Spencer Lucy Lamb, €7.49 for 230g, €32.56 per kg

Highs: This is undoubtedly the cutest of the Easter treats we tried. It has a higher percentage of cocoa solids – 30 per cent – than most of the competition, and the Belgian chocolate is substantially nicer than anything else we tried as part of this review.

Lows:We're not sure what kind of lambs live in MS land, but this looks a whole lot more like a cow to us, albeit one with rather stumpy legs. There is also a possibility that the recipient of this particular egg might be deterred from eating it by its cuteness. Parents might be deterred by the price – it is the second most expensive option we tried.

Verdict: Cute

Star rating: ***

Ratings:

***** Excellent **** Great *** Fine ** Below Par * Awful