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Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot festive advert toy causes shopping hysteria

Sales of Aldi's Kevin the Carrot plush toys have sent UK shoppers wild ahead of Black Friday, with the toy selling out online and in stores up and down the country less than a day after being made available.

The release of Aldi's Christmas advert this year saw the return of Kevin the Carrot and his family in a series of 60-second bedtime stories, alongside villainous new character Pascal the Parsnip.

However many shoppers eager to get their hands on a piece of the much-loved Christmas character were disappointed yesterday, after all five of the Kevin the Carrot plush toy sets ran out of stock online within hours of going on sale.

Fans also described queues forming out the doors to buy the toys in Aldi's physical stores, with one Twitter user adding in reports of people "scrapping" over stock.

Other retailers also chimed in on social media, as #KevinTheCarrot went viral online.

It wasn't long before the toys began popping up on resale sites, with one listing on Ebay attempting to fetch £900 for the metre-long giant Kevin toy.

A spokesperson for Aldi said: "Demand for our Kevin the Carrot toys has been exceptionally high. To avoid any disappointment, this year we increased the range by adding new characters such as Pascal the Parsnip, as well as the amount of soft toys available in each store.

"We also limited purchases to two variants per customer so as many people as possible had the chance to buy these products. As with all our Specialbuys products, these are only available while stocks last."