CANDY: According to the National Retail Federation, Halloween candy spending should hit a whopping $3.5 billion this year! That’s a slight dip from last year. Overall Halloween spending is predicted to be over $12.2 billion. Down 5% from last year.
Our friends at Candystore.com took a look at what candy is each state’s favorite, along with what are considered the best and worst candies for the holiday. Overall, the 10 most popular are, from 10th place, Butterfinger, Hershey Mini Bars, Hershey Kisses, candy corn, Hot Tamales, Starburst, Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, Reese’s and M&Ms.
It’s funny that candy corn makes the top 10, because it’s always an entry on the worst candy list, too.
In Pennsylvania, the top candy for the season is M&Ms, followed by Hershey’s Mini Bars and Skittles. What about our neighbors in New York? Maybe it’s the bitter winds from Lake Erie that brace folks for their favorite — Sour Patch Kids. There’s no chocolate on the list, as second place went to Hot Tamales and third place to candy corn.
A full 20 states didn’t have chocolate as their top pick — inconceivable — but chose candy like Jolly Ranchers, Lemonheads, Hot Tamales, Sour Patch Kids, Tootsie Pops, Blow Pops and even candy corn (really Maryland and Utah?).
All kinds of chocolate made the list, even if some favorites were sparse this year. Twix, Milky Way, Kit Kat, Almond Joy and Snickers were mentioned. Snickers is usually a favorite in several seasons, and we hear it’s good frozen. We’d hate to see its traditional spot stolen by an outlier.
We’ll bring you more on the sweet topic of Halloween candy in a future column.
