Has your Halloween candy vanished? You may have fallen for the trick of the treat
If you buy a box of candy in August, it's going to be tough to resist the temptation until October. Analysts credit this to clever packaging and marketing, along with the big boxes of candy showing up earlier and earlier each year.
Candy is showing up on shelves as early as July, which has some snacking before the ghosts and goblins show up
Philip Drost · CBC Radio
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Jessica Ryan needs to buy a lot of candy each year. She runs a children's consignment store in Windsor, Ont., and the surrounding neighbourhood hosts a Halloween party, where she sees up to a thousand kids, all looking for sweet, sweet candy.
This year, she bought her Halloween candy early. But before she knew it, a box had already not-so-mysteriously vanished.
"I have four children, so that box was gone in like five minutes."
It wasn't long before Ryan was down four boxes of candy. And she's not the only one seeing her candy disappear earlier. According to an Ipsos survey commissioned by Hello Products in 2023, the most recent figures available, more than half of the 1,282 Canadian adults surveyed at the time said they had to restock before Oct. 31.
Analysts credit this to clever packaging and marketing, along with the big boxes of candy showing up earlier and earlier each year.
Jessica Ryan bought 16 boxes of candy when it went on sale. But a few of the boxes have already been depleted. (Submitted by Jessica Ryan)
In other words, if you buy a box of candy in August, it's going to be tough to resist the temptation until October.
“The season has definitely become longer and shopping behaviour has expanded right along with it,” said Sally Lyons Wyatt, who follows food trends for the global research firm Circana and is based in Texas.
Halloween creep
Lyons Wyatt says it used to be that Halloween candy sales primarily took place in September and October.
But Halloween candy is now hitting shelves well before the leaves start to fall, with some stores stocking the sweet treats while it's still prime beach weather, a nod to the “Summerween” trend.
While having those sweet treats in stores early doesn't guarantee you will buy candy early, it does give you an opportunity, says Conor Lane.
"What putting it earlier allows [stores] to do is maximize their number of dice rolls," said Lane, a neuroscientist with The Decision Lab, a consumer behaviour research firm in Montreal.
Halloween candy has been showing up on store shelves earlier and earlier, says Sally Lyons Wyatt. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
"They have a much higher chance of getting you on a day where you've had a really tough day and you just want something to make your day a bit better, or you're in an extremely good mood and you think you might just want to treat yourself."
Lyons Wyatt says the latter is indicative of consumers increasingly looking for experiences and moments of joy.
A 2026 survey, conducted by Ipsos for the Mars company, which produces Mars bars, M&Ms and Skittles, found that nearly half of the 1,000 Canadians surveyed believed Halloween was no longer a single day, but rather a full season.
A similar survey by Mars in the U.S. also found that many Gen Z respondents were baking spooky treats and attending Halloween parties while still in the summer months.
"Summerween checks all those boxes. It's fun. It's creative. It's social, family-friendly, and relatively affordable compared to a lot of other forms of entertainment," said Lyons Wyatt.
Cues and learned associations
But early stocking isn't the only reason why some customers are buying sooner, Lane says. There are also some simple marketing tricks.
He says candy sells because of cues and learned associations.
“There is essentially an entire industry built around stimulating your cravings.”
There's the bright-coloured packaging that makes it impossible to miss. That's the cue. The learned association is that when we see candy, we think yummy.
“It works so well that we're even willing to eat a lot of Halloween candy, despite the fact that we know it's usually not very good quality," said Lane.
And then there's the bite-size nature of Halloween treats.
"Each little piece feels like it barely counts," said Lane. “It allows us to go over our kind of natural point of, 'Oh, I should stop here. I've eaten a whole chocolate bar.'"
Some Canadians no longer view Halloween as just a single day for candy, but rather an entire season of its own. (Michael Conroy/Associated Press)
In need of a restock
So what do you do if you find yourself low on Halloween candy as the children start to arrive in their Elsa and Buzz Lightyear costumes?
Ryan has found herself in that exact pickle, and has had to get creative.
"The kids go out with their friends or whoever comes home first, I'm like, 'Give me what you guys aren't going to eat and I'll hand them back out to the other kids.'"
Or, you can do what candy-makers are banking on.
“I’m probably going to grab more," said Ryan. “I'm sure we're going to eat another box or two before Halloween.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip Drost is a writer and editor for CBC Radio based in Fredericton. You can reach him at philip.drost@cbc.ca.
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