Roman Valenzuela

With October well underway, the American people are moving into a high point in spending for the year, though retail pundits at Proper Insights and Analytics have discovered a downward trend in overall spending compared to 2019, roughly 8.3 percent less, with an increase in per-person spending. Halloween spending can be an omen for the rest of the holiday season, including the all-important Black Friday. The National Retail Federation and Proper Insights and Analytics put together statistics concerning per-person spending, estimating that the average person will spend around 27.55 on sugary morsels during the 2020 Halloween Season, this list will go over what to look for and what to avoid giving to children on the 31st. These five candies are the best of the best when considering what to buy for the 2020 Halloween season.

5 Payday

If you are allergic to peanuts, please feel free to ignore this list entirely, The first entry is almost entirely made up of them. Payday, the candy bar that combines salty roasted peanuts with sweet caramel, takes the fifth spot because of the combination of flavors in every bite.

4 Skittles

Skittles are the universal candy that most people love, with an iconic artificial fruitiness that has stood the test of time. Not to mention that the standard variety is only just the beginning, Skittles come in a plethora of flavor combinations, like the ever-popular Sour skittles.

3 Junior Mints

The perfect mix of dark chocolate and a creamy mint filling that breaks up the monotony in a pile of chocolate bars. The biggest downside is how they melt together if left alone for too long, creating a sticky mess in the carton they come in.

2 Milky Way  

Milky Way bars are the perfect blend of chocolate and caramel, especially if peanuts are not your thing. Just a Snickers bar missing nuts, but they come in a handful of varieties for the different types of chocolate lovers. 

1 Reese’s Peanut Butter cups

No debate, Reese’s peanut butter cups, reign on Halloween. So coveted are these peanut butter delights, that they are among the first traded and stolen upon the conclusion of the night’s festivities. At roughly 110 calories per individually wrapped serving, they are by no means a nutritious snack.

Compared to the last five, the next line-up is made up of infamous candies that are left at the bottom of the bowl after every trick-or-treater has taken their fill.

5 Butter Finger

Under no circumstances are these meant to be eaten. The dry, flaky interior is a bland step into the world of antiquated wafer cookies. The poor attempt at copying Reese’s cups is notably worse, with the chocolate losing all taste.

4 Baby Ruth’s

Forgettable. The only word that can be used to explain this nougat and pudding filled chocolate mess, perhaps some sort of anomaly in its construction has led to this regrettable situation. But a better jab at Baby Ruth’s would be to ask the question, who puts pudding in a candy bar?

3 Milk Duds

Though these do score high in the taste department, the experience of eating milk duds is something akin to gluing your molars together and attempting to pull them apart for roughly fifteen minutes.

2 Twizzlers

Twizzlers place high on the worst candies list because of their taste, self-described as “strawberry”, these candy ropes seem to be constructed out of industrial plastic byproduct, with an oily texture to match. The color is the concoction of some laboratory worker’s attempt at commercial dye, and yet somehow the best descriptor for how these licorice abominations taste is the color red.   

1 Almond Joy

Infamous for their polarizing nature, Almond Joys which bring together a shredded paper-like texture of coconut and rock hard stale almonds. No other candy bar unites the world with the hatred of its existence, every bite into an Almond Joy is sorely disappointing. 

The Halloween season is a time when seasons change here in the valley and with the weather cooling down, the stage is set for a perfect All Hallow’s eve, and with a curated selection of the top five candies, it is sure to be a treat.