For kids. And parents who should know better.
Northern Ireland has a caterpillar problem. A chocolate-covered, birthday-candle-wearing, “I wanted the face!” kind of problem.
Welcome to our imaginary cake invasion. Watch the cake-o-meter climb, see how far the caterpillars could crawl and collect some completely unnecessary facts.
The great Northern Ireland cake invasion
Estimated caterpillars unleashed so far this year
Annual estimate: 297,869
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Almost 300,000 cakes by New Year’s Eve. Nearly 300,000 arguments over who gets the face.
JavaScript is disabled. The full-year fun facts below remain available.
The full-year cake parade
How far would all that cake stretch?
Lay a whole year’s cakes nose-to-tail and you would get…
Enough to reach the Giant’s Causeway from Belfast City Hall, with about 1.7 miles of cake left over.
Sat-nav instruction: “At the next caterpillar, continue straight ahead.”
Straight-line distances. Our imaginary cakes ignore roads, hills and planning permission.
A whole year of ridiculousness
Three facts nobody asked for
The staring contest
595,738
Little cake eyes. All looking at the parent who said, “Just a tiny slice.”
The party-slice mountain
2,978,690
Slices, if each cake gets cut into ten. “I’m only tidying the edges” is not a serving size.
The shopping-trolley problem
186.2 tonnes
Of cake. Tiny caterpillars. Extremely large shopping trolley.
Landmark bingo: how far could they go?
Every comparison starts at Belfast City Hall. Tick off the landmarks as the cake trail grows. No licking the signposts.
- Titanic Belfast
- Carrickfergus Castle
- Slieve Donard
- Glenariff Forest Park
- Giant’s Causeway
Officially unofficial cake rules
The face is prime property
The birthday child gets first refusal. Any adult claiming “I don’t mind which bit” should be watched closely.
More cake is arriving
About 816 caterpillars join the imaginary invasion each day. That’s one roughly every 106 seconds. Someone find the candles.
Parents are not impartial judges
A parent holding the knife, the plates and the biggest slice cannot also chair the Chocolate Face Dispute Committee.
Got the cake? Sort the party.
Find Northern Ireland party suppliers and plan everything around the cake. Including who is allowed near its face.
The tiny sensible note
Playful estimates using Northern Ireland’s 2021 census and 1.25 cakes per child aged 0–9 per year. Our imaginary cakes are 28 cm long, weigh 625 g, have two eyes and make ten slices. Landmark distances are approximate, as the crow flies. Sources: NISRA, cake-length reference and cake-weight reference. This is an estimated invasion, rather than a live sales feed.
