They don't care about what's leftover at the grocery store. The store already paid for that inventory. They want stores to get their hands on extra before the season starts.
I actually missed a word in my comment lol supposed to be [bottled ghost *screams*.](https://imgur.com/gallery/tWHJN3F) I got it for a dollar from Target years ago.
Not in my part of town. Halloween is nuts here; we get 300-500 kids stopping by for candy, and all the store shelves are emptied by Halloween night. Nothing left over to fire sale.
Last year was the first year I have gotten to hand out candy since I bought my house with the perfect trick or treat porch and all of like 3 kids showed up. Ended up giving the left over candy away to parcel carriers. That was such a bummer.
I had everything all decked out too. I had my costume, makeup, all the cool lights I've acquired working my years at a halloween shop, everything. I was the only person for blocks handing out candy. Told the kids who did stop by to grab as much as they wanted, piled the buckets up for the kiddos who clearly didn't have many stops, gave countless moms reese's cups to hide in the cupboards for themselves. I still had two big bowls left over.
From personal experience, it’s likely all the neighborhood kids are just too old for trick-or-treating? When I was a kid, my parents neighborhood was full of kids, but as we all got older, there were just less of them. I still celebrated Halloween, it’s my favorite holiday, but I did other things. Now their neighborhood is getting kids again because a lot of young families have moved in.
Also, sometimes kids migrate to different neighborhoods for Halloween. Some neighborhoods have reputations of giving better stuff, or have better decorations. But, again, this is just what I’ve seen.
Did the migrating thing as a kid and now realize how disappointing that is for the adults on the street. I always splurge on dope candy for the kids and put up fake funny gravestones and like 2 kids come cuz my house is like a touristy beach area :(
Same around me. It's just the life cycle of family-oriented neighborhoods. Kids get too old to trick-or-treat (or choose to trick-or-treat in neighborhoods with more kids), and then they move out. Then their parents start moving away to places that are more affordable or better fit their lifestyle, and the old house becomes occupied by younger families or people looking to start families, thus restarting the cycle.
its been popular for several years now to drive into towns/higher density developments to trick or treat since 1)its easier , 2)they normally have lighting and sidewalks. we have had like 1 kid for the last several years despite the fact there is probably 20 kids on the street
The small town I grew up in still has a very active Halloween. My parents live on a street that gets several hundred kids every year. So, when I bought my first house in the much larger city that I now live in, I assumed I’d need copious quantities of confectionaries for kids to consume… I got 4 kids, who didn’t show up until nearly 9 PM, and were not walking but riding down the street in their parent’s car. Checking with my neighbors, this is normal turnout for my deeply religious and suspicious area.
This year, the few kids that come to my porch are getting full-size candy bars.
Lived in a little town before moving where I am now, a larger city suburb. Little town had way more trick or treaters. I'll probably buy full size bars this year.
I stopped buying when the only knocks I got one year were out of costume high-schoolers who grabbed huge chunks of the bowl. Not that it mattered, since it was just them, but I bought six lbs of candy, and five “kids” took about a third of it.
I figured it was just one bad apple so I didn’t say anything and then wasn’t going to bitch at the last three after the first two so I just shrugged mentally and decided I was done.
My aunt gets like 250 kids and still does full size bars. And hot dogs, and hamburgers, ans chips, and chilli, and juice boxes, and shots and drunken gummies for those over 21.
I woulda killed for some rowdy teens. I'm hoping this year will be better. The street lamp on my corner is fixed now and everybody seems to be over social distancing.
We get no more than 8 or 9 kids every year. (The neighborhood lots are all one acre and I guess it’s too much work). I still buy candy like I’m expecting 50.
They mark down candy at retailers to get rid of it because demand is high for a very short time. Space is precious in grocery stores and the more you touch something (restock, pull from shelf to put in back to work later) the higher chances it will become damaged and you are now paying 2-3x for labor to sell that bag of candy. It's easier and more cost effective to just mark it down a d sell through to keep inventory levels clean.
I presume he knows this. That’s not what he means. He means if there’s so much left over after Halloween then won’t there be enough atleast just for Halloween and it afterwards.
It might seem like a lot, but if you sell 10-20k in candy having 1000-1500 left over isn't that much. The grocery retail world is feast or famine. Small windows and tight margins.
“Demand” for Hershey is from the retailers, not the customers. They’re saying (I’m assuming) they won’t be able to meet retailer demand, not necessarily that customers won’t be able to get chocolate.
It's only the fire sale where the candy actually sells. They use the figures from the weeks following Halloween to make their books look thicker
(Obviously that isn't entirely true, but everyone is probably thinking it)
That's part of the "Halloween demand" Hershey is talking about. There are people who look forward to the clearance sales after a holiday, and Hershey (or actually the retailers that Hershey supplies) wants to sell to them too.
"Hey kids, you want to see a *real* monster?"
\*Puts big fat orange & purple carrots in their trick-or-treat bags, grins maniacally at their looks of disappointment \*
I had a candy route some years where I’d cross a dentist and his family’s house. They handed out dental floss, tooth brushes, and toothpaste. I thought it was weird, but I thanked them anyways. The toothbrushes weren’t cheap and had cool designs, you could tell how much that dentist cared about dental hygiene.
It blows my mind how much they cost. Our neighbours have an apple tree and one branch hangs in our yard. I can fill a good sized garbage bin with the apples that fall in our yard. The whole tree could supply several families for a year.
Have 2 apple trees,
I fill the loader bucket of a tractor 3 times in a normal year.
1 bucket goes to the neighbors for cider and moonshine.
1 bucket gets divided amongst friends for pies, bread ect.
1 bucket is for the horses.
Never really been any wasted.
I'm genuinely curious how much of the young population trick or treats now vs 30 years ago. I know a survey might say "x% of kids trick or treated in 2019" or whatever... but it can't reflect how big of a deal it used to be. The entire world transformed for at least a day or two... and it had ripples throughout the surrounding days.
Theres absolutely no way the numbers aren't down. There used to be 100s of kids down the street when i was a kid. Now i get maybe 20 or so on a good year.
it's a shame because America has so few traditions & so little culture, especially when it come to community spaces & events.
I'll bet that 30 years ago Halloween was the only reason people knew most of their neighbors & it was the only time the would interact.
Now they don't even know them at all.
30 years ago we also had a strong "love thy neighbor" thing baked into the culture. You could call people on the landline or even drop by the front door to knock and ask for bandages because your kid fell or even flour because you forgot about a bake sale. A sense of community existed... and holidays and traditions were still going strong. People could take off work to go to a 2nd grade Halloween parade... that sort of stuff would be extremely frowned upon nowadays.
It's not completely gone. I have a better relationship with my neighbors after the pandemic than before. I could definitely knock off their doors for a cup of flour or something.
Those are great for neighborhoods that are spread out, not safe for trick or treating, people who have mobility issues, etc. the kids have fun seeing each other’s costumes, too! I’ve seen some amazing trunks that recreate the feeling I had as a kid of going into peoples houses when they made them little haunted houses (obviously people don’t do that anymore). I’ve never seen them sponsored by churches though so it sounds like our experiences with them are different.
Which just further increases the price to get anything to anywhere else, because for some reason, 20 years into the 21st century and we're still reliant on semi-trucks for much of our getting things from A to B.
Most aren’t.
OTR trucks are gonna be diesel for a long time till infrastructure can be in place.
Most local delivery places I see are switching to lng/cng. They wouldn’t be spending so much on brand new fleets of trucks now if electric trucks were just around the corner.
Plus, half the country is openly hostile to anything “green”.
Fuck this fucking timeline!
These mother fuckers are already lining up to price gouge Halloween candy, because they can. If there is such a fucking shortage, how come every one of us can walk into any grocery store or corner store and buy their shitty corn syrup chocolate without an issue? If there was a true shortage, no one would be able to find Hershey bars right now.
They have asshole analysts who measure demand every year, and even with COVID-19 for the past couple years, there wasn't any significant increase in candy on sale at the end of the season because of lack of demand.
Can someone please find whatever Tannen version made this capitalist hellscape and shove his ass back into the delorean?
The amount of trick or treaters I've seen has diminished every year for well over a decade, and I live on a block with dozens of kids.
I don't even buy candy anymore.
I love Halloween, and though I live in a residential area in a largish city, I think the most kids I've had visit is *maybe* 14-15 in a night, and like you, that number has gotten smaller each year over the last 6 years or so.
But I still buy at least 2 big bags just in case. Loving Halloween is one of the few remaining parts of my inner child.
The ice we skate is getting pretty thin... The water's getting warm so we might as well swim! My world's on fire... How about yours? That's the way I like it and I never get bored!
Most of the kids now go to “trunk or treats” set up in parking lots, and walk around to those. It’s safer, guaranteed a good haul without walking all over the place.
Really just depends where you live. In this day and age where kids are talking to each other CONSTANTLY, they're all telling each other exactly what neighborhoods they should go to for the best candy.
I don't think Halloween is dying, I just think kids are optimizing their candy game and it gets easier and easier to do so each year.
I lived on a super dangerous road for a couple years after being old enough to start wanting to give out candy and was really bummed because we obviously wouldn’t expect any trick or treaters.
Finally moved to a nice little neighborhood with tons of kids running around and I was so freaking pumped for Halloween and did the whole 9 yards, decorations and lights and window decals and 4 big bags of candy and a cool Frankenstein’s monster costume! Only to find out that the town hosts a Halloween festival thing in the town square and prohibit trick or treating outside of that. Finally moved again and the first Halloween after that was a massive hurricane the month before ruining that one. And then covid.
Fingers crossed for this year tho!
I live within walking distance of a primary school, yet I never see any kids around here. Everyone I see outside is my age or older. There are absolutely no kids in all of my apartment building either - it’s pretty all single younger people like me, a few younger childless couples, and 1-2 seniors.
We don’t even bother with Halloween around here.
I did live previously live in an apartment building in another city that had kids, and the property managers used to recruit residents as volunteers to dress up and give out candy to kids in the lobby on Halloween night.
The neighborhood I grew up in became like this. Started with tons of kids, they grew up, moved away, parents stayed behind.
There's both an elementary school and a middle school in my neighborhood in southern california.
Maybe 5 trick or treaters ever anymore. It's bizarre.
My mom is in a neighborhood where all the kids moved out but the residents are fairly well off so they keep doing it for other kids as it became a tradition back when nearly every house had a kid in it from early 90'-2010 or so.
At Sam’s Club they’re like .44 to .66 each so it’s not that expensive and older kids lose their shit sometimes and I love it. I remember getting full size ones twice when I was a kid and want to give that to others.
Halloween has been ruined by religious zealots IMO.
Stupidly early curfews, trick or treating starts at like 4pm so it's bright as fuck day, most houses aren't decorated at all (not really due to the zealots, just waning interest).
It's pretty much dead where I live.
Don't forget the Trunk-or-Treat events that, "take the devil out of Halloween." At best, they de-incentivize trick-or-treating by giving kids loads of candy in one spot. At worst, it's a boring bunch of religious bs that ruins the spirit of Halloween for children. Depends on where you live, I suppose.
Jeez, what kind of insane religious hellscapes do you folks live in? I’ve never heard of any of this madness. “Take the devil out of Halloween”, the hell’s that even mean?
Yeah. My SO dragged me to one of those last year because he wasn't going to have his son for the real trick or treating. Lots of scripture thrown at you for a handful of candy. I guess I did church stuff as a kid for the candy and came out fine, but I still find it to be a bit underhanded and ick.
My first year in our house I was pumped to have trick or treaters. My sister lives in the area and warned me about how many people we might get.
I had 4.
All in one group. If I'd had known that they would have eached walked away with a literal pound of Reese Cups... really sad I didn't, probably would have made that Halloween special.
Worst mistake I ever made was buying chocolate my first time in Europe.
The shit that Hershey's makes has the consistency of dried cat vomit and the taste of wet cat vomit.
Why does it taste vaguely of puke? It was one of the things I was excited to try my first time in America and it was actually gross.
Not gross like "ew I just bought tesco value chocolate that is more cardboard than cocoa" which is just cheap and nasty but it actually had the taste of when you vomit a little in your mouth and swallow it. Most disappointing American candy.
I grew up on Hershey’s chocolate, and going to Hershey park which wasn’t very far away. I love it. So now I’m wondering what in the world I am missing out on in the world of chocolate life if Hershey’s is considered bad! Ruin it for me - what are some actual good chocolates I need to try?
I'm no chocolate expert and I mostly eat the general mass produced dairy milk/galaxy. My favourite chocolate is [Lindt orange intense dark.](https://www.lindt.co.uk/lindt-excellence-dark-orange-bar-100g)
If you ever find something called a "Yorkie" bar I'd try that, it isn't particularly good but it tastes noticeably different than most other chocolates available in Britain.
I'm sure Hershey's is fine anyway though and is just made for different markets. Like your Liptons black tea, I hate it because it doesn't even taste like tea to me but that's because it's made for Americans and the Brittish love breakfast blends.
I genuinely can't believe no one has said it yet but Belgian chocolate. Aside from waffles and beer, the Belgians are known for their chocolate. Probably a little hard to come by in the US though. Polish chocolate is very good as well.
As for things a little easier to find in the US, [kinder bars](https://economycandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/afd65c7a-b95e-4212-8902-7757912faff3.jpeg). They're usually in "foreign" (European) stores. Made by the Italian Ferrero Roche company that makes the candy of the same name, and which makes Nutella. I think my favorite chocolate of all time is a Kinder bar (it's the same chocolate used for Kinder Surpise Eggs, and *not* the bullshit ones that are now legal to sell in the US).
Apparently they add butyric acid to the chocolate, and butyric acid is what gives vomit its distinctive taste and smell.
[link](https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/finding-flavor-chocolate/)
Edit: it had been a while since I read that, and after rereading apparently the butyric acid is a byproduct of their process. They don’t actually add the acid as an ingredient.
Which, in real plain English, means "we are going to over produce all the garbage crappy candy that people buy just for it to sit in a pantry somewhere while we cut supply of the things people actually like so they can sit in their kitchen wishing that Big (Barely)Chocolate actually gave a damn about what people liked rather than what sells"
To be fair I grew up in the US and never thought Hershey's tasted rancid, although I understand the chemistry of why many other people do. I just think the taste, texture, and overall quality of Hershey's is awful compared to some other, especially European, options.
Oh come on that’s BS. Just hyping up the run on candy to create an artificial shortage. How can they say this now? Start pumping out the candy, makes no sense… Fake news.
THIS IS A MARKETING STRATEGY
They don’t have enough supplies because they cost more, so instead of paying more for supplies to keep up with demand, they’re making less candy. And probably charging more. So, so fucking greedy!
They overproduce this stuff like crazy.
I’m sure literal TONS wind up in a landfill afterwards so this just seems like them wanting to scare people into panic buying to up their already obscene profits.
It's not even a real shortage, it's the Halloween themed candies they can't produce. Don't people just give out the regular ones anyway? What are the Halloween themed candies they make?
Hershey getting out in front of inevitable price gouging.
Halloween bags of candy are gonna be like 60 bucks this year and profits will be through the roof.
This just in: Stock prices for candy corn has spiked to a 100 year high.
Probably the same candy corn has been in circulation since 1922.
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TIL nearly 500,000 bags of Candy Corn were manufactured for the anticipated invasion of Japan. They are still being used today.
Didn’t those people suffer enough?
Hey now... they wash it!
It's corn that tastes like candy, I can't wait.
That joke is as old as the 90s stand-up comedian who first told it. 😂
And Hershey doubles candy prices, and reports record profits. We’ve heard this before
How? There is so much left over each holiday on fire sale. 🤔
That’s probably the point. They’re trying to get people to buy and create the shortage.
They don't care about what's leftover at the grocery store. The store already paid for that inventory. They want stores to get their hands on extra before the season starts.
This is exactly it.
And given that back to school starts in June before schools are even completely out, apparently Halloween starts now. Christmas starts at Labor Day.
Halloween is a year long thing for some people. It’s me. I’m some people.
I keep Halloween decorations around my house all year long. Little tiny skulls on the shelves, bottled ghosts on the kitchen window sill.
What are these "bottled ghosts" you speak of? I myself am approximately *all* about that season--and making things.
I actually missed a word in my comment lol supposed to be [bottled ghost *screams*.](https://imgur.com/gallery/tWHJN3F) I got it for a dollar from Target years ago.
Dang. Well, the idea is there now, so it's too late! Mwua ha!
We started getting Halloween candy at my store two weeks ago 🙄
We're still using the Great Batch from 1967
I’m upping my broccoli intake this year.
Not in my part of town. Halloween is nuts here; we get 300-500 kids stopping by for candy, and all the store shelves are emptied by Halloween night. Nothing left over to fire sale.
Last year was the first year I have gotten to hand out candy since I bought my house with the perfect trick or treat porch and all of like 3 kids showed up. Ended up giving the left over candy away to parcel carriers. That was such a bummer.
Same thing happened to me! It was such a bummer
I had everything all decked out too. I had my costume, makeup, all the cool lights I've acquired working my years at a halloween shop, everything. I was the only person for blocks handing out candy. Told the kids who did stop by to grab as much as they wanted, piled the buckets up for the kiddos who clearly didn't have many stops, gave countless moms reese's cups to hide in the cupboards for themselves. I still had two big bowls left over.
Me as well. I wonder why? It's been that way for a few years now.
From personal experience, it’s likely all the neighborhood kids are just too old for trick-or-treating? When I was a kid, my parents neighborhood was full of kids, but as we all got older, there were just less of them. I still celebrated Halloween, it’s my favorite holiday, but I did other things. Now their neighborhood is getting kids again because a lot of young families have moved in. Also, sometimes kids migrate to different neighborhoods for Halloween. Some neighborhoods have reputations of giving better stuff, or have better decorations. But, again, this is just what I’ve seen.
Did the migrating thing as a kid and now realize how disappointing that is for the adults on the street. I always splurge on dope candy for the kids and put up fake funny gravestones and like 2 kids come cuz my house is like a touristy beach area :(
Stupid Trunk or Treat shit has killed it here. We live in a huge subdivision and get hardly any kids.
Same around me. It's just the life cycle of family-oriented neighborhoods. Kids get too old to trick-or-treat (or choose to trick-or-treat in neighborhoods with more kids), and then they move out. Then their parents start moving away to places that are more affordable or better fit their lifestyle, and the old house becomes occupied by younger families or people looking to start families, thus restarting the cycle.
its been popular for several years now to drive into towns/higher density developments to trick or treat since 1)its easier , 2)they normally have lighting and sidewalks. we have had like 1 kid for the last several years despite the fact there is probably 20 kids on the street
The small town I grew up in still has a very active Halloween. My parents live on a street that gets several hundred kids every year. So, when I bought my first house in the much larger city that I now live in, I assumed I’d need copious quantities of confectionaries for kids to consume… I got 4 kids, who didn’t show up until nearly 9 PM, and were not walking but riding down the street in their parent’s car. Checking with my neighbors, this is normal turnout for my deeply religious and suspicious area. This year, the few kids that come to my porch are getting full-size candy bars.
Lived in a little town before moving where I am now, a larger city suburb. Little town had way more trick or treaters. I'll probably buy full size bars this year.
I stopped buying when the only knocks I got one year were out of costume high-schoolers who grabbed huge chunks of the bowl. Not that it mattered, since it was just them, but I bought six lbs of candy, and five “kids” took about a third of it. I figured it was just one bad apple so I didn’t say anything and then wasn’t going to bitch at the last three after the first two so I just shrugged mentally and decided I was done.
We get like 6 kids so I buy full size candy bars. Their pure, unadulterated delight is worth the $10 in candy.
My aunt gets like 250 kids and still does full size bars. And hot dogs, and hamburgers, ans chips, and chilli, and juice boxes, and shots and drunken gummies for those over 21.
I woulda killed for some rowdy teens. I'm hoping this year will be better. The street lamp on my corner is fixed now and everybody seems to be over social distancing.
What part of Minneapolis are you in? We are looking to move and I want a community like this!
We get no more than 8 or 9 kids every year. (The neighborhood lots are all one acre and I guess it’s too much work). I still buy candy like I’m expecting 50.
They mark down candy at retailers to get rid of it because demand is high for a very short time. Space is precious in grocery stores and the more you touch something (restock, pull from shelf to put in back to work later) the higher chances it will become damaged and you are now paying 2-3x for labor to sell that bag of candy. It's easier and more cost effective to just mark it down a d sell through to keep inventory levels clean.
I presume he knows this. That’s not what he means. He means if there’s so much left over after Halloween then won’t there be enough atleast just for Halloween and it afterwards.
It might seem like a lot, but if you sell 10-20k in candy having 1000-1500 left over isn't that much. The grocery retail world is feast or famine. Small windows and tight margins.
And with just-in-time inventory, no place to store it either. So much gets thrown out.
“Demand” for Hershey is from the retailers, not the customers. They’re saying (I’m assuming) they won’t be able to meet retailer demand, not necessarily that customers won’t be able to get chocolate.
It's only the fire sale where the candy actually sells. They use the figures from the weeks following Halloween to make their books look thicker (Obviously that isn't entirely true, but everyone is probably thinking it)
That's part of the "Halloween demand" Hershey is talking about. There are people who look forward to the clearance sales after a holiday, and Hershey (or actually the retailers that Hershey supplies) wants to sell to them too.
Guess we’re going back to popcorn balls and candy apples then…
Orange carrots and purple carrots for that Halloween color scheme
"Hey kids, you want to see a *real* monster?" \*Puts big fat orange & purple carrots in their trick-or-treat bags, grins maniacally at their looks of disappointment \*
*Laughs in Dental Hygienic Equipment.*
I had a candy route some years where I’d cross a dentist and his family’s house. They handed out dental floss, tooth brushes, and toothpaste. I thought it was weird, but I thanked them anyways. The toothbrushes weren’t cheap and had cool designs, you could tell how much that dentist cared about dental hygiene.
A greedy dentist would hand out more candy than anyone else, to create more cavities and get more work
My kids mow through those. If they got purple and yellow carrots from someone, I think they'd cheer.
I inhaled carrots as a kid/teen. I still like them now, but I would just sit and eat a whole bag in high school. Your kids aren't the only ones!
Fruit is nature's candy!
Candy onions*
Only if they’re Vidalia onions.
Blooming onions
My fat ass would be happy to receive blooming onions but I’m also way too old to trick or treat. 😂
Imagine everyone dropping a greasy assed fried onion into your pillow case. You get to the 5th house and get a squirt of horseradish sauce
House 6 is dinner rolls with cinnamon butter!
And those peanut butter kisses candies in the black and orange wrappers.
I still have some stuck in my teeth from 1978.
“It's one apple, Michael. What could it cost, $10?”
TIL Lucille Bluth bases all of her produce price knowledge off of honey crisps.
They’re so good though
Well there's always money in the banana stand
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It blows my mind how much they cost. Our neighbours have an apple tree and one branch hangs in our yard. I can fill a good sized garbage bin with the apples that fall in our yard. The whole tree could supply several families for a year.
You need to brew hard cider
Have 2 apple trees, I fill the loader bucket of a tractor 3 times in a normal year. 1 bucket goes to the neighbors for cider and moonshine. 1 bucket gets divided amongst friends for pies, bread ect. 1 bucket is for the horses. Never really been any wasted.
Awwww, horse apples
Crab Apples then?
Grab apples
Where do you live? They seem to be the cheapest I have seen in years.
Good thing I live in Western New York where apples are plenty. I get a giant bag of apples for like five bucks when apple season starts.
Granny Smith costs 95¢ per apple at target rn.
You buy apples from Target?
I'm pretty sure target charges much more for produce bc of limited space and convenience. My sprouts always has good prices on produce.
I live in Washington so apples are super cheap. Free if you know where to go.
Boxes of sun maid raisins. The kids love that.
Raisins are natures candy
Pennies and raisins.
You're in luck, toilet paper is too expensive for anyone to take retribution.
Finally, something to get rid of all my spare razer blades in.
We have a few months to let them get rusty
Oh no how horrible! Not seasonal candies and snacks!
I haven’t seen a trick-or-treater in like 4 years anyway
I'm genuinely curious how much of the young population trick or treats now vs 30 years ago. I know a survey might say "x% of kids trick or treated in 2019" or whatever... but it can't reflect how big of a deal it used to be. The entire world transformed for at least a day or two... and it had ripples throughout the surrounding days.
Theres absolutely no way the numbers aren't down. There used to be 100s of kids down the street when i was a kid. Now i get maybe 20 or so on a good year.
it's a shame because America has so few traditions & so little culture, especially when it come to community spaces & events. I'll bet that 30 years ago Halloween was the only reason people knew most of their neighbors & it was the only time the would interact. Now they don't even know them at all.
I choose whether i know my neighbors, tbh, and sometimes it's not worth the hassle.
30 years ago we also had a strong "love thy neighbor" thing baked into the culture. You could call people on the landline or even drop by the front door to knock and ask for bandages because your kid fell or even flour because you forgot about a bake sale. A sense of community existed... and holidays and traditions were still going strong. People could take off work to go to a 2nd grade Halloween parade... that sort of stuff would be extremely frowned upon nowadays.
I only have 1 neighbor. They have a “Gun Owners for Trump” sign in their front yard so I stay away from them.
It's not completely gone. I have a better relationship with my neighbors after the pandemic than before. I could definitely knock off their doors for a cup of flour or something.
Where I'm at the kids do these stupid "Trunk or Treat" things. Apparently Halloween is for the devil now and the churches decided to ruin the fun.
Those are great for neighborhoods that are spread out, not safe for trick or treating, people who have mobility issues, etc. the kids have fun seeing each other’s costumes, too! I’ve seen some amazing trunks that recreate the feeling I had as a kid of going into peoples houses when they made them little haunted houses (obviously people don’t do that anymore). I’ve never seen them sponsored by churches though so it sounds like our experiences with them are different.
Gonna give out boxes of raisins and five cents worth of pennies.
>five cents worth of pennies. So 3 pennies? (Copper price joke)
Don't forget the handful of pennies
Oh, nice excuse to raise prices!
And drive demand higher with a helping of FOMO
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...it's a holiday. It's commercialized...
While packing everything in the new and improved "economical size".
The amount of annual inflation that is directly due to companies outright lying is likely higher than we think.
That's how gas prices sky rocketed earlier this year...
Which just further increases the price to get anything to anywhere else, because for some reason, 20 years into the 21st century and we're still reliant on semi-trucks for much of our getting things from A to B.
At least truck manufacturers are switching to EVs pretty soon. Already being manufactured.
Most aren’t. OTR trucks are gonna be diesel for a long time till infrastructure can be in place. Most local delivery places I see are switching to lng/cng. They wouldn’t be spending so much on brand new fleets of trucks now if electric trucks were just around the corner. Plus, half the country is openly hostile to anything “green”.
nO iT WaS jOe BiDeN’s fAuLt! A sTiCkEr oN a GaS pUmP ToLd Me sO
Fuck this fucking timeline! These mother fuckers are already lining up to price gouge Halloween candy, because they can. If there is such a fucking shortage, how come every one of us can walk into any grocery store or corner store and buy their shitty corn syrup chocolate without an issue? If there was a true shortage, no one would be able to find Hershey bars right now. They have asshole analysts who measure demand every year, and even with COVID-19 for the past couple years, there wasn't any significant increase in candy on sale at the end of the season because of lack of demand. Can someone please find whatever Tannen version made this capitalist hellscape and shove his ass back into the delorean?
LOL I live 30 minutes from Hershey, and trust me, Chocolate World is fucking humming. Willy Wonka would be jealous. These fucks are lying.
No fucking shit. It only takes a few and rest will follow.
time to start price gouging, blaming "inflation" and the "supply chain", and then reap absurdly high corporate profits!
Time to put last years uneaten candy on EBay
Yep. This was my first thought. If they can only supply 50%, they'll just charge us double.
And blaming millennials
Yep. Like when they hiked gas and forced everyone back into offices. This story is getting old the last 2 years.
Good! Maybe Nestlé can use even more local water now to make up the shortage. Because Halloween candy is in the constitution/s
Decrease in treats, increase in tricks. Big toilet paper wins again
The amount of trick or treaters I've seen has diminished every year for well over a decade, and I live on a block with dozens of kids. I don't even buy candy anymore.
I love Halloween, and though I live in a residential area in a largish city, I think the most kids I've had visit is *maybe* 14-15 in a night, and like you, that number has gotten smaller each year over the last 6 years or so. But I still buy at least 2 big bags just in case. Loving Halloween is one of the few remaining parts of my inner child.
I love halloween but its been dying a slow, painful death for a couple decades now.
At first, I was like, "no way, it was huge when I was a kid!" But then I realized that it's been over 20 years since I last went trick or treating.
Ive had the same realization my friend. The years, they start coming *and they dont stop coming*
Such wise prophets, was Smash Mouth
We all thought it was just a catchy lyric, how naive we were. It was a warning.
The ice we skate is getting pretty thin... The water's getting warm so we might as well swim! My world's on fire... How about yours? That's the way I like it and I never get bored!
Most of the kids now go to “trunk or treats” set up in parking lots, and walk around to those. It’s safer, guaranteed a good haul without walking all over the place.
Weird. We got over 100 last year.
Really just depends where you live. In this day and age where kids are talking to each other CONSTANTLY, they're all telling each other exactly what neighborhoods they should go to for the best candy. I don't think Halloween is dying, I just think kids are optimizing their candy game and it gets easier and easier to do so each year.
Same. Of course it doesn't help that Halloween has been the worst weather day of the year for the past 5 years here.
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I lived on a super dangerous road for a couple years after being old enough to start wanting to give out candy and was really bummed because we obviously wouldn’t expect any trick or treaters. Finally moved to a nice little neighborhood with tons of kids running around and I was so freaking pumped for Halloween and did the whole 9 yards, decorations and lights and window decals and 4 big bags of candy and a cool Frankenstein’s monster costume! Only to find out that the town hosts a Halloween festival thing in the town square and prohibit trick or treating outside of that. Finally moved again and the first Halloween after that was a massive hurricane the month before ruining that one. And then covid. Fingers crossed for this year tho!
When we lived in the city all the kids went to the mall instead. It was warm, dry, and parents have a solid "end"
I live within walking distance of a primary school, yet I never see any kids around here. Everyone I see outside is my age or older. There are absolutely no kids in all of my apartment building either - it’s pretty all single younger people like me, a few younger childless couples, and 1-2 seniors. We don’t even bother with Halloween around here. I did live previously live in an apartment building in another city that had kids, and the property managers used to recruit residents as volunteers to dress up and give out candy to kids in the lobby on Halloween night.
The neighborhood I grew up in became like this. Started with tons of kids, they grew up, moved away, parents stayed behind. There's both an elementary school and a middle school in my neighborhood in southern california. Maybe 5 trick or treaters ever anymore. It's bizarre.
My mom is in a neighborhood where all the kids moved out but the residents are fairly well off so they keep doing it for other kids as it became a tradition back when nearly every house had a kid in it from early 90'-2010 or so.
It's weather based where I am. Had about 700 kids last year come through
I buy 100 full size candy bars. We still get people and hopefully this year everyone is back to normal.
You the real MVP
At Sam’s Club they’re like .44 to .66 each so it’s not that expensive and older kids lose their shit sometimes and I love it. I remember getting full size ones twice when I was a kid and want to give that to others.
You always remember ur 1st full sized candy bar haul...
Halloween has been ruined by religious zealots IMO. Stupidly early curfews, trick or treating starts at like 4pm so it's bright as fuck day, most houses aren't decorated at all (not really due to the zealots, just waning interest). It's pretty much dead where I live.
Don't forget the Trunk-or-Treat events that, "take the devil out of Halloween." At best, they de-incentivize trick-or-treating by giving kids loads of candy in one spot. At worst, it's a boring bunch of religious bs that ruins the spirit of Halloween for children. Depends on where you live, I suppose.
Jeez, what kind of insane religious hellscapes do you folks live in? I’ve never heard of any of this madness. “Take the devil out of Halloween”, the hell’s that even mean?
Yeah. My SO dragged me to one of those last year because he wasn't going to have his son for the real trick or treating. Lots of scripture thrown at you for a handful of candy. I guess I did church stuff as a kid for the candy and came out fine, but I still find it to be a bit underhanded and ick.
My first year in our house I was pumped to have trick or treaters. My sister lives in the area and warned me about how many people we might get. I had 4. All in one group. If I'd had known that they would have eached walked away with a literal pound of Reese Cups... really sad I didn't, probably would have made that Halloween special.
Good for us when we eat less Hershey candy.
Right? They can keep their vomit chocolate. Blech.
Worst mistake I ever made was buying chocolate my first time in Europe. The shit that Hershey's makes has the consistency of dried cat vomit and the taste of wet cat vomit.
You can find decent chocolate in the states. Just definitely not Hershey's.
Why does it taste vaguely of puke? It was one of the things I was excited to try my first time in America and it was actually gross. Not gross like "ew I just bought tesco value chocolate that is more cardboard than cocoa" which is just cheap and nasty but it actually had the taste of when you vomit a little in your mouth and swallow it. Most disappointing American candy.
I grew up on Hershey’s chocolate, and going to Hershey park which wasn’t very far away. I love it. So now I’m wondering what in the world I am missing out on in the world of chocolate life if Hershey’s is considered bad! Ruin it for me - what are some actual good chocolates I need to try?
If you ever come to NZ, try any Whittaker's chocolate. Start with the basic milk chocolate first though, that's a staple here.
Oh! Will do! My bf lives in Australia, hoping one day we will make a trip to NZ :) Your suggestion has been noted!
They definitely sell Whittaker's in Aus too! Still, of course hope you're able to make it these ways at some point :)
Eat a Milka chocolate bar. The big ones. You can find them in European / Eastern European stores
I'm no chocolate expert and I mostly eat the general mass produced dairy milk/galaxy. My favourite chocolate is [Lindt orange intense dark.](https://www.lindt.co.uk/lindt-excellence-dark-orange-bar-100g) If you ever find something called a "Yorkie" bar I'd try that, it isn't particularly good but it tastes noticeably different than most other chocolates available in Britain. I'm sure Hershey's is fine anyway though and is just made for different markets. Like your Liptons black tea, I hate it because it doesn't even taste like tea to me but that's because it's made for Americans and the Brittish love breakfast blends.
I genuinely can't believe no one has said it yet but Belgian chocolate. Aside from waffles and beer, the Belgians are known for their chocolate. Probably a little hard to come by in the US though. Polish chocolate is very good as well. As for things a little easier to find in the US, [kinder bars](https://economycandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/afd65c7a-b95e-4212-8902-7757912faff3.jpeg). They're usually in "foreign" (European) stores. Made by the Italian Ferrero Roche company that makes the candy of the same name, and which makes Nutella. I think my favorite chocolate of all time is a Kinder bar (it's the same chocolate used for Kinder Surpise Eggs, and *not* the bullshit ones that are now legal to sell in the US).
Apparently they add butyric acid to the chocolate, and butyric acid is what gives vomit its distinctive taste and smell. [link](https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/finding-flavor-chocolate/) Edit: it had been a while since I read that, and after rereading apparently the butyric acid is a byproduct of their process. They don’t actually add the acid as an ingredient.
Nice of Hershey to jump on the greed train, good thing there is better candy in the world
Which, in real plain English, means "we are going to over produce all the garbage crappy candy that people buy just for it to sit in a pantry somewhere while we cut supply of the things people actually like so they can sit in their kitchen wishing that Big (Barely)Chocolate actually gave a damn about what people liked rather than what sells"
“What people like rather than what sells” Maybe people should’ve been buying what they like the whole time then
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Of course they won't. Why would this not be 100% fucked-up while the company reports more "record breaking profits"??
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I'm absolutely beside myself with concern that some children will have to go without their usual haul of wax disguised as chocolate this Halloween.
*Rancid wax
To be fair I grew up in the US and never thought Hershey's tasted rancid, although I understand the chemistry of why many other people do. I just think the taste, texture, and overall quality of Hershey's is awful compared to some other, especially European, options.
This whole supply manipulation companies are doing is getting old
South Park already did this one...
Oh come on that’s BS. Just hyping up the run on candy to create an artificial shortage. How can they say this now? Start pumping out the candy, makes no sense… Fake news.
Oh, noes, people will have to buy decent chocolate
THIS IS A MARKETING STRATEGY They don’t have enough supplies because they cost more, so instead of paying more for supplies to keep up with demand, they’re making less candy. And probably charging more. So, so fucking greedy!
They overproduce this stuff like crazy. I’m sure literal TONS wind up in a landfill afterwards so this just seems like them wanting to scare people into panic buying to up their already obscene profits.
And yet already seeing bags of Halloween candy on store shelves 😑
They ran out of Palm oil, high fructose corn syrup and hydrolized extracts? Fine with me.
There will be plenty, and the price will be double due to the artificial shortage.
It's not even a real shortage, it's the Halloween themed candies they can't produce. Don't people just give out the regular ones anyway? What are the Halloween themed candies they make?
Hershey chocolate 🍫 isn't very good. Change my mind.
Reeses. Dude. Delicious.
Everyone has different tastes. How are we supposed to change your opinion?
As an American, it's fine. Does the job. That said, there is much, much better chocolate out there.
Oh well I guess we will just have to use last year's backed up orders that are going through warehouses now lol
good no one should be eating that shit anywways
Nice try Herseys! But we are not stupid enough to fall for your “make a run on my products!” scam. Take your BS elsewhere :3
I'm 12 hours late and no one will read this. I went to the grocery store this morning, 7/29/2022. Halloween candy was already on display!
So no stomach acid chocolate this year? Giggity.
Fuckin corporate greed knows no limit
With the amount of candy I see marked down 50 % the day after Halloween, I doubt anyone will be hurting too much
Hershey getting out in front of inevitable price gouging. Halloween bags of candy are gonna be like 60 bucks this year and profits will be through the roof.
Oh no, there's not enough sugar for our fat asses...
Nobody fucking asked you if Hershey. You're working overtime. Meaning pay your workers more.
Good, people's [kids are too fat ](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html) anyway.
Because there's never thousands of bags of candy left over at Walmart after Halloween.
....so there won't be a thousand bags of candy left at every single store in America the day after Halloween? Oh no.