Top Halloween Candies to Treat – and to Keep

With a record number of adults celebrating Halloween this year, it’s safe to say that this isn’t a holiday just for the kiddos anymore. Those of us 18+ dress in costume, attend parties, carve pumpkins, decorate our homes/ yards, and even force Fido to get in on the fun. Then there’s the candy. Oh, yes, the candy.

Don’t we all get excited when the Halloween treats hit store shelves around Labor Day? I’ll cop to purchasing four bags of my “fun size” favorites last month. I justified this as shopping ahead for what was sure-to-be an onslaught of little trick-or-treaters on Beggar’s Night this year [side note: we had five last year]. But whether we have one, five, twenty, or fifty little ghosts and goblins, it won’t matter because that candy is gone.

Yes, I had consumed four bags of Halloween candy in a matter of weeks.

Strike that.

Yes, my husband and I had consumed four bags of Halloween candy in a matter of weeks. #shame

But we’re not alone in our sugar-high-inducing disgrace…right? As it turns out, we all have our favorite Halloween candies to treat to others – and to keep for ourselves. According to our October monthly survey of nearly 9,000 consumers, about one in five (20.1%) of those with a preference cite Snickers® as their favorite candy to pass out on Beggar’s Night, double the popularity of the next brand on their list, Reese’s® (10.8%) and consistent with last year’s findings.* Expect plenty of Kit Kat® Bars (6.7%), M&M’s® (6.3%), and Hershey® Bars (4.8%) among trick-or-treaters’ Halloween hauls this year as well.

I tend to get a Halloween hankering for three bags worth of Reese’s® Pieces each year [loved them since E.T. #productplacementworks], and I’m glad to see that this craving is perfectly normal: when it comes to the candy that connoisseurs would prefer to keep at home, Reese’s® (16.1%) has a slight edge over Snicker’s® (15.1%), while Candy Corn (7.9%), Kit Kat® (5.7%), and M&M’s® (5.2%) follow.

Although Halloween is still a week away, Beggar’s Night can’t come soon enough. There’s a bag of Milky Way® bars at my house about to become extinct.

For more new insights on Halloween from our October survey, see Consumers’ Cure for Stress? Halloween

And, for Halloween data released earlier in the month by our friends at the National Retail Federation, including spending, activities, planned costumes, and a fabulous infographic, please click here.

* Favorite candy brands to pass out to trick-or-treaters and to keep at home are the results of two unaided, write-in questions. Percentages displayed in this report are based on consumers expressing a preference.

Source: BIGinsight.com

© 2012, Prosper®

BIGinsight™ is a trademark of Prosper Business Development Corp.

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