Are Halloween treats getting smaller? (2023)

Is Halloween candy shrinking?

Trick-or-treaters may notice smaller candies this year. According to The Washington Post, candy companies are reducing the size of candy amid skyrocketing inflation. The Post listed examples of smaller sizes: A bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses is now two ounces smaller.

Confectioners are shrinking their bars to manage rising costs.

Chocolate producers don't want to raise their prices, so instead they often opt to cut the size of the bar in hopes that consumers won't notice. Unfortunately, this means that people are paying the same price for a smaller amount of chocolate. It's a form of inflation, but it is more discreet than a change in price.

1. CandyStore explains Circus Peanuts have previously been no. 1 on its “worst” list and were in second place last year.

(CNN) - Halloween treats are getting smaller due to shrinkflation and a move by candy companies to reduce calorie counts, The Washington Post reports. Shrinkflation is when manufacturers reduce the size of their products instead of increasing the price. Halloween candy is the latest shrinkflation victim.

In Hershey's Second Quarter 2022 Earning Results published on July 27, Hershey Chief Executive Officer Michele Buck revealed the an inventory shortfall could affect the 2022 Halloween season. “We will not be able to fully meet consumer demand due to capacity constraints,” Buck said on the call.

Your Halloween candy just got smaller. A bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses is now a couple of ounces smaller than before. A two-pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups is a tenth of an ounce lighter. And Cadbury milk chocolate bars are about 10 percent skimpier.

The cost increases are affecting snack food, cheese, drinks, soaps and more. Economic experts say the changes in package sizes are a result of inflation. They call it “shrinkflation.”

Bags of Maltesers, M&M's and Minstrels are all getting smaller in what is the latest example of confectionery firms trying to boost profit margins. Mars has admitted the sharing pack sizes of the three brands are shrinking by up to 15 per cent.

Mars, Inc. — the company that created M&Ms, Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers and other iconic confectioneries still popular today — started to sell smaller versions of their candy bars in 1961.

Why have all chocolate bars got smaller?

Cadbury has slashed the size of its family-size bars of Dairy Milk by 10% as the nation's favourite chocolate falls prey to “shrinkflation”. The confectionery company has announced it is passing on rapidly rising production costs to customers, with US-based parent company Mondelez blaming inflation.

"The big decrease in the size of the bar contrasts with only a small reduction of fat and an increase in carbohydrates. "Those carbohydrates are mainly sugar whereas the size has decreased by almost 10g. "This shows that the 1995 bar was actually healthier than today's equivalent."

America's favorite Halloween candy is Reese's Cups, followed by Skittles and M&Ms. Those top three favorites remain unchanged from 2021. Check out the survey results, which includes the most popular candy for each state, at CandyStore.com.

Candystore.com is listing off this year's most popular Halloween candy by state. The nationwide winner is Reese's Cups.

Because the makers of that ingredient had done something not very cook-friendly — they'd halved the weight on their boxes of chocolate squares but replaced them with boxes of almost identical dimensions; so it's no wonder a cook picking up the new 4-oz. boxes would think they were the 8-oz.

"Generally, stores really do sell through most of their inventory by lowering prices," said Michael Allured, publisher of candy trade magazine The Manufacturing Confectioner. "All but a very small portion is sold, the rest may go to a food pantry like Second Harvest.

Halloween candy tastes different – less good, less pleasant – simply because we end up eating too much of it in the span of a few short hours. The prime ingredient in most candies is sugar, and after eating copious amounts of sugar, our taste buds get a little numb, figuratively.

Eggs and Meat

In spring 2021, news of a chicken shortage resulted in fast-food chains cutting back on chicken items. The shortage then moved over to grocery stores in the fall. According to Business Insider, nearly half of Americans in a survey reported seeing a shortage of meat and eggs in the beginning of 2022.

Topping the list this year is Hershey's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, followed by: Snickers. Kit Kat. Hershey Bar.

Did fun size Snickers got smaller?

Among its examples — a Snickers bar, which went from 58 grams (2 ounces) to 45 grams (1.58 ounces), representing a drop of 17%; and a 165-gram (5.8 ounces) bag of M&M's that now weighs in at 140 grams (4.9 ounces).

According to The Washington Post, candy companies are reducing the size of candy amid skyrocketing inflation. The Post listed examples of smaller sizes: A bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses is now two ounces smaller. A two-pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups has been lightened to a tenth of an ounce.

Mars Wrigley Australia moved its manufacturing of Snickers bars to China while the company's Ballarat factory was undergoing an upgrade. In August it brought the bars back home – but the higher cost of manufacturing means they have shrunk.

It's the inflation you're not supposed to see. From toilet paper to yogurt and coffee to corn chips, manufacturers are quietly shrinking package sizes without lowering prices. It's dubbed “shrinkflation,” and it's accelerating worldwide.

The process called "shrinkflation" usually happens when companies are trying compensate for high costs.