Christmas brings gifts, Thanksgiving brings turkey, and Halloween brings candy to kids all around the world. Many trick-or-treaters often go home with a bag full of sweets and end up trading the candies that they don’t want with their friends or the trash can. Candy is very seasonal in the United States, with some of the most purchased candies around Halloween being hardly available the rest of the year.
To identify the most popular Halloween candy of 2021, we looked at indexed search interest on Google across the top 50 different types of candy given out on Halloween. The search index classifies growth or declines in consumer search interest relative to the past, where 100 represents the most search interest around the attribute historically — and 0 represents the least.
So what is the most popular Halloween candy of 2021?
Candy Corn!
Of all the candy out there, candy corn ranks number one for the highest jumps in consumer search interest during this Halloween week. Virtually every trick-or-treater will get some candy corn this year. The traditional Halloween candy stays on top of the candy pack two years in a row, with consumer search lower than it was last year for the product — but higher than its competition.
A potential cause of candy corn’s growth worth considering is that the search index used in this analysis is based on relative search growth rates. So unlike many other candies, which are popular all year, candy corn has a huge spike around Halloween due to its traditional link with the holiday.
What’s next?
Second place? From fifth in 2020 to second in 2021, Starburst is bringing its “unexplainably juicy,” fruity flavors to Halloween this year. To capture the rest, check out the Top 10 most popular halloween candy in 2021 and the candy that ranked 11-20 below.