Halloween candy: Americans expected to spend record $2.2 B

Americans are expected to spend more than $2.2 billion this year on Halloween candy.

If we didn’t know better, we’d wonder whether Halloween was a plot by the American Dental Assn.

“Halloween is the largest candy-selling holiday of the year,” Susan Smith, a senior vice president with the National Confectioners Assn., told The Times. The association estimates that candy sales this Halloween will hit $2.273 billion -- a record.

Unfortunately, you can’t mention “Halloween candy” without acknowledging the fears that some people have about Halloween sadism -- the possibility that razor blades might be hiding in apples or that candy might be poisoned.

Sociologist Joel Besthas has taken it upon himself to investigate these kinds of troubling rumors, which at one point led hospitals and medical centers across the country to offer free X-rays of Halloween candy. (This year, we only found one hospital, the Chesapeake, Va.-based Patient First medical clinic, taking such precautionary steps.)

He says the fears are overblown and offers up this paper to bolster his position.

But enough about all that down stuff. Here are some sweet facts from Candy USA:

--Most Halloween candies doled out are chocolate.

--More than 93% of kids trick-or-treat.

--Most adults (62%) choose a Halloween candy to hand out because it’s a personal favorite.

--More than 35 million pounds of candy corn will be produced this year, which translates into 9 billion pieces of candy corn. Try this visual on for size: That’s enough candy corn to circle the moon more than 20 times, if all those stripes niblets are laid out end to end.