Iowa/USA’s #1 Selling Halloween Candy Is NOT The C.V.’s Favorite
Even though the CDC website lists traditional door-to-door trick or treating as a "high risk" activity and the city of Waterloo is asking residents not to do it, that doesn't mean we (the adults) and the kids can't enjoy all of our favorite Halloween candy.
It depends on how you look at it. This is not a great time of the year for those of us concerned about elevated triglycerides or coping with diabetes. Or, it's the greatest time of the year, because there's candy everywhere! In our office, there's a big bucket of candy dumped on our counter, making it impossible not to grab a piece (or six) every time I walk by. As a matter of fact, I'm enjoying a "Mr. Goodbar" as I type this. That got me to thinking, what is our favorite Halloween candy here in the Cedar Valley?
The Candystore.com recently crunched the numbers, using 13 years of bulk candy sales data from 2007-2019, studying the months leading up to Halloween. Do their sales numbers match-up with our local taste for "sweets"? Let's compare "Candystore.com's findings to our findings in an informal (and very un-scientific) Facebook survey.
Over the past 13 years, the Candystore.com has shipped nearly 68,000 pounds of M&M's to Iowa, making them #1 in our state. Coming in at #2 was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and in 3rd place, believe it or not...Candy Corn. As far as the rest of the nation goes...Skittles is the #1 selling candy in the U.S.A., followed by Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and (my personal favorite) Starburst. Sure, it's hard to deny objective data like this, but our individual tastes here locally are a bit different.
Respondents were asked to list their favorite candy in order, 1, 2 and 3. Our favorite Halloween Candy here in the Cedar Valley is actually NOT M&M'S, heck, they didn't even make the top 5.
Our favorite candy, by far, is (drum roll please...)
1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (with almost twice as many votes as the #2 candy)
2. Snickers
3. Kit-Kats
4. Twix
5. Butterfingers
6. M&M's
7. Milky Way
8. Almond Joy
9. Heath
10. Mr. Goodbar
You'll notice that Candy Corn (#3 seller in the state) is not on this list, and Skittles did not get one single vote in our survey. So now you know what kind of candy to get this Halloween to please everyone. Those orange paper wrapped, delicious peanut butter cream treats, surrounded in scrumptious chocolate, only known as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. While your enjoying one, you can debate with your family and friends, is it pronounced Ree-siss?...or Ree-see's"?
Check out the map below to see each state's #1 selling candy: