WHEN Mussels owner Fred Moncada walked into the supermarket yesterday he stood there dumbfounded.

In the bakery section, on the second day of the new year, Easter-style hot cross buns were lining the shelves.

"I went into the shops and I just couldn't believe it," Mr Moncada said.

"I'm livid. I've been a pastry chef for 35 years and hot cross buns are only ever meant to be a week before Easter.

"It is ludicrous. The whole meaning of Easter has gone."

Mr Moncada said the tradition of hot cross buns was something he personally valued.

"The supermarkets are not that desperate to make a dollar," he said.

"It's actually quite offensive to me that there are hot cross buns on the shelf on the second of January.

"I was brought up with hot cross buns as a religious tradition.

"It's something really close to me and I think Easter has a lot of personal meaning for people."

Mr Moncada said Easter now had the same level of commercialisation as Christmas.

"There is no agenda other than money," he said.

"Something special has been lost and it's long gone.

"We need someone to put up their hand and say, 'Hey, what are you doing?'"

The Daily News took to the streets to see if other Warwick residents felt the same way.

And the general consensus was that January was too soon for hot cross buns.

"It's too early. I'm still eating trifle and pudding," Natasha Williamson said.

"People don't enjoy it anymore and they're pretty much over it by the time Easter actually rolls around."

Lucy Wasowicz agreed.

"It's ridiculous. I'm still eating turkey," she said.

"I know what I want and I don't need to be told by shops or advertising what I need to buy."

Warren Parish said it was disappointing that traditions were not respected anymore.

"It's a bit of a shame. It ruins it," he said.

"There are no real meanings of events anymore. It is all lost in the competition to see who can sell the most.

"It's all about the shops and not about us."

However, the big supermarkets say the reason for the early roll-out is because people simply love the taste of hot cross buns.

A spokeswoman for Woolworths said hot cross buns and Easter eggs went on sale at the same time every year, in the week following Christmas.

"They are extremely popular and our customers love them," she said.

"They are one of our highest-selling bakery items in the lead-up to Easter.

"Woolworths expects to sell more than 50 million individual hot cross buns in the months leading up to Easter."

A spokeswoman for Coles said the same thing.

"Our hot cross buns go on sale in all stores across Australia on January 1," she said.

"Last year in January alone we sold over one million packets or more than seven million individual buns.

"Overall we sold more than 40 million buns last year."