Halloween's Sugar Daddy

Trick or treat! It’s Halloween and children (and yes, you too probably) are ready to fill up bags with some free sugary treats. Halloween is more than just an excuse to gorge yourself on fun sized chocolate bars, it’s a big business too. Handful after handful of assorted treats is worth about $8.4 billion to the US economy, according to the National Retail Federation.

Halloweeners are expected to spend the most ever this year and out of the 171 million people planning to celebrate close to 121 million will be handing out candy.

If we translate candy consumerism into dollars we get a sweet $2.5 billion. With the bulk being spent on just candy, says the NRF. That breaks down to a whopping $82 bucks per person.

Leading the confectionery market is the privately owned Mars Inc. Once a partial holding of billionaire Warren Buffett, the maker of Milky Way and Snickers, posted over $33 billion in revenue in 2015 according to IBISWorld. That’s about one third of the entire candy industry’s revenue.

So what is America’s go-to candy? M&Ms…the chocolate covered candy is so popular, they are turning out 400 million bags every day.

This Halloween where you may see vampires and superheroes; all the candy industry sees are dollar signs. Have a happy and safe Halloween from your FOXBusiness.com family!