That is, not the stuff we give out - that goes right into the bags of the kiddies, and thence directly into their tummies to fuel their hyperactive brachiations.
No, I’m wondering about the stuff that was in the stores on Monday, and is not there today.
We were playing the usual game of “chicken” with the local stores, waiting to buy the candy when it was on sale. The price never changed, so we bit the bullet and bought some from the giant mountains of bags and boxes on Monday.
“Ha” I said to myself, “I will go there on Tuesday, and score some stuff for myself!”
Today… Nothing. Not a kit-kat. The mountains of boxes of tiny little chocolate bars are gone. Vanished like skeletons in the mist.
Where do they go? Do they get returned to the factory to be re-packaged? As in - do they take it out of the halloween boxes and pack it back into “mini bars” bags for sale later? Are the candy companies allowed to do that?
Do they go to the back room of the stores to be brought out again 365 days hence? (I would think that they have a best before date.)
Did I miss the hoards of chocolate craving folks in the morning?
A LOT of places sell the leftover Halloween crap, I mean, candy, for at least 50% off after Halloween. My sugar-fiend kids used to stock up on the stuff November first.
Then I think it would be sold to places like Big Lots or dollar stores.
I doubt that it is repackaged. Since the markup on a lot of retail stuff is so excessive, the last choice would be to just throw it away.
~VOW
Why would they do that? There’s always a market for candy. It either goes on sale at the store that has it (which is what I usually see) or it goes to discounters.
My guesses would be: wholesale discount, converted X-mas candy, reprocessed in some type of livestock feed/bio-fuel or donated/trashed. Which ever cost less/pays most.
I can’t speak for your city, but it’s still on discount sale in our supermarkets. This year is also an odd one since many cities delayed their official Halloween because of the snow storm, so people still need the candy.
Why don’t you ask the supermarkets where their candy went? Perhaps it was purchased by customers looking for bargains before you made it to the store? It may simply be gone - the stores are often pretty good at forecasting how much they will sell.
When I was running a Dollar General, we discounted it. 25% the first week after Halloween, 50% the second week, and 90% the third week. Any candy left after that was written off and tossed into the trash.
Now a days, at least at the DG I used to work for, any candy left after the second week is given to the local boys and girls club.
Interestingly enough, last year before Christmas I bought some “chocolate santas” wrapped in foil. On unwrapping them, I kid you not, they looked like rather pudgy skeletons. I’m almost certain that they were the same chocolate shapes that were sold for Halloween as skeletons, in a different foil.
I did wonder whether they repackaged all the unsold Halloween skeletons, but I decided it would be far too labour-intensive to unwrap the foil from each one and rewrap as Father Christmas. More likely, they just use the same mould and use different foil for different seasons.
Anyway, round here (UK) you can usually buy cut-price spook-themed sweets for a week or two after Halloween. I would go and buy some but I have lots left over as we didn’t get a single trick-or-treater…
I’ve heard (second-hand, so it’s not personally verified) that many modern feedlots feed cattle expired candy bars, wrappers and all, because they fatten up faster on such high calorie food.
I bet that ultimately what they can’t sell in a timely fashion would go for that purpose if the store’s in a cattle producing area.
Not with Halloween candy, but with chocolate Nikolaus* and Easter bunny figures, this has been a topic to be pondered for decades. Thousands of children believe that left-over figures are melted down and re-sold each feast-time.
Adults investigating this, however, confirm what the companies say: it would be far too labour- and money-intensive to collect left-over figures, ship them, melt them, recast them, wrap them again.
In addition, storing them for several months and re-melting them would affect the quality of the chocolate very negativly.
They’re simply sold at cheaper prices.
*Santa Claus = Saint Nikolaus = Dec. 6th in Germany
I suspect that most stores have contracts with local discount places to buy them out at a given % off, probably 50% or more. This has the advantage of clearing shelf space immediately so you can fill it with the next holiday’s stuff. Otherwise, you have a mult week process of consolidating and marking down merchandise for minimal gain.
So the candy you’re looking for is probably at a Dollar Tree, or Big Lots, or something like that.
At great personal expanse, I have just gone on a research mission to Waitrose. Pumpkins, half-price. Halloween chocolates, also half-price. And, best of all, variety packs of Cadbury’s miniatures - not in any way branded or related to Halloween but obviously in stock as trick-or-treat fodder - also half-price. I wonder why they didn’t keep these last items for Christmas, seeing as the best before date is not until April.
People lurk at my store on Halloween night until 12:01 AM, then wheel cartloads of candy to the registers for the half-off prices. Wish I was kidding. We literally sold several pallets of chocolate to one single customer this year. We still made a profit on that sale, incidentally… the big candy makers give markdown money to the big chains to cover unsold inventory. Entire aisles that were half-full the night of Halloween were stripped bare by noon of November 1st. They’re going to be household snacks, lunchbox desserts, stocking stuffers for Christmas, office candy-jar treats, or cheap Halloween handouts for next year for those who buy them.
Lower-end stuff like non-chocolate candies (Smarties, etc.) and the Palmer waxy chocolates can linger on the shelves for a few days, but at my store, name-brand and premium stuff is sold through by the middle of the first day following any given holiday.
I’ve noticed that Easter candy seems to last about a week after Easter, but I’ve never paid attention at Halloween, mostly because I have a thing for Cadbury creme eggs and caramel eggs, and go looking for those on sale after Easter, while I usually don’t bother after Halloween.
This is the likely reason. I did inventory management for my last company, a restaurant food supply company. When things became short-dated or holiday items were left over, we had three local salvage grocery places we would call. One tended toward the gourmet stuff, one, the individually packaged stuff (cases of yogurt, granola bars, hot pockets, etc) and one that would buy up almost anything. Anything still in date (even if short dated) and usable went to a food bank.
I would think that supermarkets, drugstores and discount stores have a similar setup.