October is arguably the most exciting month for candy for a variety of reasons. The obvious one is Halloween. Who doesn’t enjoy free candy? I’m unfortunately too old to go trick or treating but I sure can’t wait to have kids just so I can raid their halloween stash with the premise that I’m looking out for “dangerous” treats (like my folks did with me). But when else is candy purchased in such large quantities?
According to Chegg.com. “Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy a year for Halloween.” 600 million pounds is hard for anyone to conceptualize so let’s put it this way. If it were equitably distributed every SINGLE person in the US could eat around 2 pounds of candy for Halloween (we’ll pretend cavities don’t exist for this example).
These statistics are great because they allow us to learn about what people enjoy in terms of candy. We’re all familiar with the annual “favorite halloween candy by state” article that is published around this time. Yet, did you know that a staggering 90 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold the week before the spooky holiday? Halloween takes the lead for chocolate sales in front of every other major US holiday. To put that in perspective, almost 65 million pounds of candy are sold during Easter and “only” 48 million pounds during Valentine’s Day.
Halloween is so monumental for candy sales in the US that it accounts for over 10% of its ANNUAL candy sales — nearly $2 billion dollars of candy sold.
For candy makers, there is no better time to learn about people’s candy consumption habits than October but for home owners expecting trick or treaters, I say you learn from the repetitive candy being put out at every front door and use Halloween as an opportunity to give out some more interesting candies. A great way to look for unique and amazing tasting candies is to head over to the Qcandystore.com There is still plenty of time to place an order before the trick-or-treaters show up!
For more candy news, keep up with our blog!