THE LOCAL NEWS OF THE MADISON VALLEY, RUBY VALLEY AND SURROUNDING AREAS

Sugar High

Montana’s most popular Halloween candies may be a surprise

MADISON COUNTY - With less than two weeks until Halloween, it’s time to stock up on snacks for the trick-or-treaters that will inevitably come knocking on October 31. To help homeowners across the state prepare, a bulk candy outlet conducted and analyzed over a decade of research to identify which candies were the most popular in each state across the nation.

CandyStore.com sells millions of pounds of Halloween candy each year and has been monitoring local trends in sales since 2007. This year, they identified the top three candies in each state, as well as the top 10 for the entire United States.

But the results may seem more like a trick than a treat.

Montana’s top candy is a unique one, shared with only one other state (Oklahoma): Dubble Bubble bubble gum. The state will buy and distribute nearly 26,000 pounds of the pink confection this Halloween. 

And it’s not a fluke either; bubble gum has been the top seller for Montana for the past two years, hanging onto its spot by a wide margin in 2018.

So, if you want to please your trick-or-treaters, it looks like bubble gum is the way to go. Montana’s top three is rounded out by Twix (over 15,000 pounds) and M&Ms (nearly 13,000 pounds), so stock up on those as well. 

“This year, it is expected that $2.6 billion will be spent on trick-or-treat,” says Clair Robins of CandyStore.com. “We have seen a lot of surprising favorites and least favorites over the years. The top Halloween candies in your state are not always what you think they are.” Each of the nearly 179 million people who celebrate Halloween will spend, on average, $27 to do so.

Skittles, which are the number one candy in the nation by weight, are the favorite candy of five states: California, Hawai’i, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In total, around 2.5 million pounds of Skittles will be given away this year. 

Perhaps Halloween’s most contentious sweet is in fact the top earner in seven states. Ask any group of trick-or-treaters how they feel about candy corn and you’ll probably get a very polarized set of responses. But not in Nevada, apparently.

Over a million pounds of the striped sweet will be purchased this year, with nearly a third of that consumed by the state of Nevada. Candy corn also takes the top spot in New Mexico, Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, Michigan and tiny Rhode Island.

Candy corn is also the sixth top seller nationwide. Following Skittles, the nationwide top five includes M&Ms, Snickers, Reese’s peanut butter cups and Starbursts.

Robins also reports that around 50 percent of parents who buy candy for trick-or-treaters will also stash some for themselves to munch on later. So, if your top choice isn’t bubble gum or candy corn, there’s no shame in keeping some of your favorites for later; you won’t be alone.

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The Madisonian

65 N. MT Hwy 287
Ennis, MT 59729
406-682-7755
www.madisoniannews.com

Cori Koenig, editor: editor@madisoniannews.com
Susanne Hill, billing: s.hill@madisoniannews.com 
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