The first U.S. appearance of Trick-or-Treating was in the 1930’s when it became a widespread practice. The original tradition of Samhain, (aka All Hallows Eve), has been lost to most individuals celebrating it in the 21st century.

Now when people think of All Hallows Eve they think about costumes and candy. All different types of candy too. From Chocolate goodies like Snickers and Hershey’s to Sour candies like Skittles and Sour Patch Kids.

A Sweet Time To Get Spooky! Merida, Disney Princess
A Sweet Time To Get Spooky! Merida, Disney Princess

In this case study we are analyzing from a short list, the most and least preferred candy that people of all ages would like to receive in autumn and during the celebration of All Hallows Eve.

library(tidyverse)
## ── Attaching core tidyverse packages ──────────────────────── tidyverse 2.0.0 ──
## ✔ dplyr     1.1.4     ✔ readr     2.1.5
## ✔ forcats   1.0.0     ✔ stringr   1.5.1
## ✔ ggplot2   3.5.1     ✔ tibble    3.2.1
## ✔ lubridate 1.9.3     ✔ tidyr     1.3.1
## ✔ purrr     1.0.2     
## ── Conflicts ────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse_conflicts() ──
## ✖ dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter()
## ✖ dplyr::lag()    masks stats::lag()
## ℹ Use the conflicted package (<http://conflicted.r-lib.org/>) to force all conflicts to become errors
FavoriteCandy <- read_csv("/cloud/project/Candy/FavoriteCandy.csv")
## Rows: 100 Columns: 19
## ── Column specification ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
## Delimiter: ","
## chr  (5): Timestamp, Allergies or dietary restrictions?, Any comments and/or...
## dbl (13): Snickers, KitKat, Twix, Ghirardelli Squares, Reeses, JollyRancher,...
## lgl  (1): Score
## 
## ℹ Use `spec()` to retrieve the full column specification for this data.
## ℹ Specify the column types or set `show_col_types = FALSE` to quiet this message.
colnames(FavoriteCandy)
##  [1] "Timestamp"                             
##  [2] "Score"                                 
##  [3] "Snickers"                              
##  [4] "KitKat"                                
##  [5] "Twix"                                  
##  [6] "Ghirardelli Squares"                   
##  [7] "Reeses"                                
##  [8] "JollyRancher"                          
##  [9] "Twizzlers/ Red Vines"                  
## [10] "Lollipops"                             
## [11] "SourPatch"                             
## [12] "Skittles"                              
## [13] "Apples / Fruits / Floss"               
## [14] "Allergies or dietary restrictions?"    
## [15] "Any comments and/or questions?"        
## [16] "How young are you?"                    
## [17] "Where do you prefer to buy your candy?"
## [18] "M&M's"                                 
## [19] "Toys (Yoyo's, Slinkys, KeyChains)"

Treats! Yummy Treats!

Devoted “Trick-or-Treater’s” have begun to draw out neighborhood maps showcasing the “must-go-to” and “Must-Avoid” houses and companies to visit. Guaranteeing them the best All Hallows Eve candy instead of being left with the odds and ends of the sugar bowl.

Who Cares, It’s Just Candy?

True, it is “just candy” but, they all have different taste and flavors to them. For instance, Snickers, Ghirardelli Squares and Twix all have sweet delectable caramel inside of them.

Whereas Skittles, on the other hand, are multicolored and fruit-flavored and Sour Patch’s are gummy candies with a sweet and sour combination.

Here’s a breakdown of the types of candies that people rated on a scale of 1-5, (Nope or Love), in the “Pick Your Favorite Halloween Candy!” survey.

Chocolate Candies

Sour and Sweet Candies

Non-Edibles

Pick Your Favorite Candy Dashboard
Pick Your Favorite Candy Dashboard
rename(FavoriteCandy, Allergies = "Allergies or dietary restrictions?")
rename(FavoriteCandy, Age = "How young are you?")
Where Should I Buy My Candy?
Where Should I Buy My Candy?

Innovative Conclusion

Now, to answer our main question. Which candies are going to be our “Go To” candies for the fall and winter season of 2024-2025.

Winner, winner chocolate spinner! Reese’s spun to the top of the survey board. With it’s saucer shape and irresistible peanut butter and chocolate filling, Reese’s beat out its caramel rival Twix by about 18 points. Still, the closest candy to dominate 33% of the chocolate and caramel market.On the sweet and sour or non-chocolate side of candy Lollipops come in third with only 27 total votes out of 100. Here are the scores with their ratings from the first 100 surveys.

Speaking of markets, I would say that the majority of people would prefer grabbing their candy at well known supermarkets such as Walmart or Target. Further, the “Other” column could be another supermarket that people prefer to occupy that was not listed. However, that could only be known through further observations from future surveys.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Apples and Floss and Lollipops have a tied rating of (1) 48 times out of the 100 survey entries.

At A Loss With Floss
At A Loss With Floss

So I guess you could say that trick or treater’s don’t particularly enjoy being gifted floss and fruits during All Hallows Eve.

So whether you are a chocolate lover or a fan of sour and sweet the Fall season has a lot to offer. With All Hallows Eve season right around the corner anyone who is a fan of candy will have a plethora of sweet options to choose from and enjoy.

Happy Holidays, 
Delightful Candy for Divine Energy!

              Published by Victoria De La Cruz