The pandemic has disrupted every aspect of life, including it turns out, how much Halloween candy people bought.
A recent survey conducted by University of Delaware shows people are celebrating Halloween differently this year because of COVID-19.
One of the study’s authors is Brandon McFadden, an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Economics and Statistics at UD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The survey published in the magazine Choices found that only about half the households who handed out candy last year plan to this year. And fewer families plan to allow their kids to trick-or-treat.
“Of those households with children under the age of 14 who trick-or-treated in 2019, sixty percent of those households think that they are unlikely to trick or treat this year,” said McFadden.
The survey results suggest that year-over-year candy sales will be “dramatically down” in 2020.
McFadden says the economic impact of the shift remains to be seen.
“Right now, it's a bit of wait and see,” he said. “There's obviously going to be an impact to candy companies, also food retailers who sell that candy. Then you could imagine these ripple effects going even further into things like decorations.”
McFadden has studied food industry trends throughout the pandemic. His next focus is studying behavior around Thanksgiving and the other upcoming holidays.
Two of McFadden’s co-authors on the Halloween study were highschoolers—one from Wilmington, who designed the survey questions, and the other from Palo Alto, California, who made the data visualizations.
