Halloween Fun Facts ft. Supply Chain

By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex

We’re back with another installment of finding weird facts about holidays. You’d be surprised what a good Google search can dig up.

Halloween Candy

For our Halloween themed post, let’s start out with candy. Arguably one of the best parts of Halloween (I’d say best, but costumes…), Halloween candy swings wildly between fun-sized versions of your favorite candies to the Halloween specific monstrosities (see what I did there?). Yes, I’m talking about candy corn. This polarizing candy is the second favorite Halloween treat, following the always tasty chocolate, as studied by the National Confectioners Association and they estimate that as much as 20 million pounds of candy corn is sold annually. Personally, I’m pretty meh about candy corn, but in Canada, you can get some magical thing known as blackberry cobbler candy corn, and I’m so down for trying that.

Of course, we can’t discuss candy corn with out discussing it’s slightly less offensive cousin, the candy pumpkin. Officially made of a substance called mellowcreme, these interestingly textured candies also played a role in the current enactment of Daylight Savings. Candy makers wanted Daylight savings to extend past Halloween so that trick-or-treaters had an extra hour of daylight to collect candy. During 1985 Congressional hearings, confectioners put candy pumpkins on senator’s seats to try and curry a little favor. Finally, in 2005, Daylight Savings was extended to the first Sunday in November to include Halloween.

Of the 2.5 (estimated) billion dollars spent on Halloween candy every year, only 70% of that is handed out to trick-or-treaters. As for that other 30%? That’s my kind of people.

Costumes – Fancy Dress for Halloween

Candy’s great, but the other best part of Halloween is costumes. There’s always the classic vampire (bleh bleh bleh):

Or Batman characters are always popular:

But of course, we found logistics inspired costumes. Click here to find the collection, but I laughed out loud at the UPS label onesie.

UPS Label Onesize - Costume

Other essential (but less exciting, personally) parts of Halloween include pumpkins and parties. In 2006, major pumpkin producing states shipped out 1 billion pounds of pumpkins. This extends past Halloween (gotta have pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving), but when you think about all the Jack-o-lanterns that get carved through October, that’s a lot of pumpkin produced. Not to mention the $101 million price tag on the old tradition of warding off spirits.

If you’re looking for a place to party, some of the Halloween-iest places in the US (as listed on pumpkinpatchesandmore.org) are:

  • Transylvania County, NC
  • Tombstone, AZ
  • Pumpkin Center, NC
  • Pumpkin Bend, AR
  • Cape Fear in New Hanover County, NC
  • Cape Fear in Chatham County, NC
  • Skull Creek, NE.

And of course, there’s always Salem, MA.

With four of those locations only a hop, skip, and a jump away from MHI HQ in Charlotte, NC, I might have discovered some new Halloween hangouts.

Now, at this point you may be asking how this information (fun though it is) relates to supply chain. Well, without supply chain, none of it happens. The candy, costumes, and even supplies to make said goodies are all shipped around using supply chain. So, when you’re out enjoying Halloween, scarfing down candy and watching Hocus Pocus, remember to thank supply chain for making it possible.

(Yes, Halloween turns me into a child. Deal with it.)

.