Halloween candy

As Halloween approaches for kids, costumes have been selected and candy awaits. For adults, it’s the annual question of selecting treats to dispense.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups consistently ranks as the most popular trick-or-treat candy nationally. In 2024, Peanut M&M's, regular M&Ms, Kit Kat and Snickers rounded out the top five most popular. However, the most popular candy varies sharply around the country, according to Instacart. In Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, the most popular brand in 2024 was Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Peanut M&M’s were most popular in the Pacific Northwest, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate in the Mid-Atlantic and brands totally unfamiliar to me in a surprising number of states. Our fifty states are definitely not united when it comes to Halloween candy preferences.

When asked what she wants this year for trick-or-treat, eight-year-old neighbor Zoey was clear: Kit Kat. In recent years, though, we’ve had trick-or-treaters opt for individually bagged popcorn. Can receiving only candy be too much of a good thing for our young neighbors?

Instacart also calculates the amount of candy per customer sold during Halloween. Sales per customer were highest in Utah at 9.8 ounces and lowest in Hawaii at 3.7 ounces. Ohio ranked tied for twenty at 5.9 ounces per customer. In general, westerners buy more candy than easterners.

I scoured the shelves of our local groceries to find relatively healthy candy options. My only constraint was individual wrapping for dispensing the treats. I found four:

• Tony’s Chocolonely Tiny minis are small disks made with Fair Trade cacao, sugar and honey.
• YumEarth Choco Yums look like M&Ms, but they contain semi-sweet chocolate instead of milk chocolate and cane sugar instead of sucrose and glucose.
• YumEarth Pops are made with organic fruit.
• Equal Exchange minis are made with organic fair trade cacao beans, organic vanilla and organic cane sugar.

I found Tony’s Tiny and YumEarth Pops in Oxford at MOON Co-op, Kroger and Walmart; Choco Yums at MOON Co-op and Walmart; and Equal Exchange only at MOON Co-op.

Two decades ago, we were with friends in Chicago at Halloween. Their two sons, Alex and Josh, then both under age 10, returned with plenty of candy. Living in the same house with two professional economist parents, the boys proceeded to create a marketplace. “I’ll trade you two Milky Ways for one Kit Kat.” By the end of the evening, the family concluded that younger brother Josh had out-traded (future Miami graduate) Alex. Take that Farmer School.

For Halloween 2020, during the pandemic lockdown, our neighbors gathered in our cul-de-sac, so that the trick-or-treaters didn’t have to come to our front doors. It was a rare opportunity to socialize in that sad year. We adults enjoyed that gathering so much that we repeat it every Halloween. Around the corner, our neighbors, the Paces, do us one better by grilling hot dogs for themselves as well as the trick-or-treaters.

Last year, then 13-year-old Miles joined us adult neighbors in our cul-de-sac. I asked Miles why he did not go around the neighborhood to collect candy. He responded that it’s boring, he’d rather be with us dispensing the candy – although he (and I) did bike around the corner for the hot dogs. I’m guessing that now 14-year-old Miles will join us adults again this year.

This column is normally devoted to healthy local food, but it’s Halloween, so gimme a break this week.

James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.