Opinion
Students choose their favorite Halloween candy in survey
October 28, 2011
“My favorite thing about Halloween is the smell of all the candy mixed together when I open my bag,” Caroline Szymanski divulges. And boy does Halloween draw in a huge market for candy. Stores stock up at the end of September in anticipation of the eager customers. To give you an idea of the average amount of candy a store orders for Halloween I took a trip to Econofoods.
The Store Director, John Wild, was very helpful and explained the meaning behind the figures. Their store orders 9 mods of candy and 25 cases. Each mod has 144 to 864 units and each case holds 12-20 units. A unit would be a bar of candy or if we were talking about M&M’s, a bag. Putting this into perspective that would be at least 1,596 candy bars! Can you imagine 1,000 Reese’s, 1,000 M&M’s or 1,000 Snickers? That would be enough to keep you satisfied between your dentist checkups where I’m sure all that sugar would really start to kick in.
Now that you know the stores have stocked up, how is your personal supply looking? (After that midnight sugar craving perhaps not so great.) So now you’re left with the task of getting out there before the trick-or-treaters come. Wait! Before you go, find out just what type of candy people are craving. Maybe you have experienced the anticipation of the “good house,” the one you are sure will have the good treats. Almost every neighborhood has one, be it for king-size candy bars or cans of pop. How would you like to be known for good treats?
I know, I know, you’re probably thinking how am I supposed to buy enough king size candy bars or packs of pop on a college budget?! No worries, you don’t need flashy treats, you just need to have the right type of treat. Know what kind of candy your audience craves and stock up on it.
After conducting a short survey on 50 students the results clearly showed the favorite on campus: Reese’s. When asked why Reese’s was the top spot on first year Katie Wilson’s list she stated “Reese’s is a combination of peanut butter and chocolate, my two favorite things.”
Snickers and Skittles tied for second, but nowhere near the 21 percent of votes Reese’s claimed. The campus opinion doesn’t fall far from BusinessWeek’s latest report on “America’s 25 Favorite Candies” from October 2009. They ranked Reese’s as the second favorite candy pulling in a whopping annual sale of $516.5 million. The only candy to beat it was M&M’s at an annual sale of $673.2 million. So stock up on those chocolate covered peanut butter cups to keep trick-or-treaters satisfied (or as the best bargaining tool for later trade).
Brittney Pfenning-Wendt is a columnist for the Student Voice.