Remote Scottish island has more Easter eggs than residents after local shop makes massive ordering blunder

20 March 2024, 17:09 | Updated: 20 March 2024, 17:15

The remote Scottish island now has more easter eggs than residents after a local shop made a huge ordering blunder.

Sinclair General Stores on the island of Sanday, Orkney, had intended to order just 80 easter eggs to cater for the small population, but were instead left with hundreds of boxes.

A total of 720 easter eggs were delivered to the store after it mistakenly ordered 80 cases instead of 80 eggs.

The quantity of festive chocolates now exceeds that of the island's population of around 500 people.

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Following the huge over-order, the shop's owner has decided to raffle off some of the eggs, with all of the chocolate going to just one lucky winner.

Dan Dafydd, from Sinclair General Stores, said the money raised by the raffle would go to the RNLI, the coastal rescue service which is very active around Orkney during the islands' sometimes blustering weather.

Despite locals and staff at the shop finding the mistake rather funny, Mr Dafydd said he was left with feeling of "embarrassment and shame".

"The rest of the staff were chuckling and finding it very entertaining," Mr Dafydd told BBC Radio Orkney.

"I was doing our Easter egg orders and was looking at doing 80. Having put the order through I thought nothing more of it.

"But when it arrived in store it turned out I'd ordered 80 cases of Easter eggs, meaning I had 720 rather than the 80 required."

Mr Dafydd suggested it was unlikely he could sell the full 720 eggs so has had to turn to other means to shift the stock.

He said they would start a 'guess the number' square where locals could pick a number to win 100 of the easter eggs.

Thinking the winner would likely give the eggs away, he said some of his customers thought they could tackle the entire batch of chocolate.

The RNLI has since thanked Mr Dafydd for the fundraising idea, calling it a "incredibly generous gesture" following his "rather unfortunate delivery".