Fortnum & Mason flogs £5,000 boxes of Christmas crackers — worth just £2,740

POSH store Fortnum & Mason is selling a £5,000 box of Christmas crackers — containing prizes worth barely half its price tag.

The Regal Crackers come in a wicker basket stencilled with the luxury grocer’s initials.

The Regal Crackers come in a wicker basket stencilled with the luxury grocer’s initials and will set you back £5,000

AlamyBut the total value of the prizes in the posh store’s crackers is just £2,740.[/caption]

Its six gold-coloured cylinders contain vouchers to claim some of the department store’s festive hampers. 

But the total value of the prizes is just £2,740.

Buyers are told on F&M’s website: “Presented in one of our signature hampers and bursting with yuletide joy, The Regal Crackers contain the greatest Fortnum’s gift of all.”

It adds: “Inside each cracker your guests will find not one, but two vouchers for our hampers — meaning there’s a very special treat for everyone awaiting.”

The store gives links for the available hampers — allowing canny customers to do the maths.

And the figures make cracking business for the shop.

One of the festive tubes contains vouchers for baskets worth £600 — Fortnum’s Express Hamper costing £100 and the £500 Fortnum’s Afternoon Tea Hamper — which comes completes with a tea set and a book, Time for Tea, by food writer Tom Parker Bowles. 

The Express includes teas and coffees, biscuits and nuts, marmalades, preserves and condiments.

By contrast, two of the crackers have vouchers for hampers with a combined value of £380.

Fortnum & Mason — founded in 1707 and based in London’s Piccadilly — is also selling crackers containing traditional trinkets for £1,000. stephen.moyes@the-sun.co.uk