Polish Easter is two big meals and one blessed basket. On Holy Saturday families bring a basket to church to be blessed. On Sunday they eat a long breakfast. Both run on food your store sells. If you are out of white sausage or horseradish the week before, that shopper buys the whole spread somewhere else. Here is what to stock and when to order.

What goes in the święconka basket

The blessed basket is the heart of Polish Easter. It holds colored eggs, white sausage, bread, salt, horseradish, a sugar lamb and cake. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute's culture.pl notes that the egg “symbolises new life and Christ's resurrection.” Shoppers assemble the basket in the days before Easter, so the basket items sell first and sell out fastest. Stock colored-egg supplies, biała kiełbasa, horseradish and sugar lambs early.

The Easter breakfast table

Easter Sunday breakfast is where the volume is. The core dishes are żurek with white sausage and egg, cold cuts with ćwikła and horseradish, herring, and baked goods. For the table, stock white sausage, rye flour or żurek base, herring in oil and cream, horseradish, ćwikła, mustard and eggs. Cracovia covers the cold side with beets, pickles and horseradish relish.

The sweets sell the week before

Polish Easter baking is a category of its own. Mazurek, babka, sernik and makowiec show up on every table. That means flour, twaróg or farmer cheese, poppy seeds, dried fruit, nuts, sugar and glazing in the two weeks before. Shoppers bake at home, so the baking aisle runs hot. Keep it deep.

When to order

Easter moves every year, so work back from the date. Place your first order about three to four weeks out to lock in shelf-stable items: żurek base, herring, horseradish, baking goods and sweets. Reorder white sausage and fresh items for the final week. Build in a buffer, because the last Saturday before Easter is the single biggest basket day. We deliver greater Chicago on our own trucks and nationwide through our partners, so ask your rep for order-by dates in your area.

The bottom line

Polish Easter rewards the store that is stocked for the basket and the breakfast both. Plan the full spread, order early and keep the baking aisle deep. Eagle has supplied Polish and European favorites to independent stores since 1992, with more than 1,000 products and exclusive brands including Tymbark, Kubuś and Cracovia. Request the catalog, become a customer, or call 773 775 5777.