Easter Candy

Springtime brings with it the start of nature’s growing season, Easter and Passover celebrations, and excessive sugar consumption by millions of children. How large are Easter candy sales? Statista has numbers:

Sales fell during the initial phase of COVID in 2020, then rose sharply in 2021—it appears all that fiscal stimulus was lucrative for the chocolate industry. With a little over 70 million children in the US, the approximately $700 million in sales of Easter chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, and jelly beans averages out to about $10 per child. Chocolate eggs had greater sales than chocolate bunnies; Doordash provides a customer order chart showing the most popular Easter candy by state:

Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, followed by Cadbury Creme Eggs, were the most ordered Easter candy nationwide. The best-selling chocolate bunny was the Lindt chocolate bunny, which came in 7^th place overall.

Eggs and bunnies, which symbolize rebirth and fertility, have pagan roots. In fact, the word Easter can be traced back to the Scandinavian word ‘Ostra’ and the Germanic words ‘Ostern’ or ‘Eastre’, which themselves are associated with goddesses of spring and fertility, for whom festivals were celebrated at the Spring Equinox. Chocolate eggs and bunnies were made possible by the development of the cocoa press which separated cocoa butter from the cocoa bean.

Chocolate bunnies themselves are typically hollow, in part because they’re easier to eat, and in part because hollow bunnies are cheaper to manufacture than solid ones. World War II cocoa rationing also contributed to the hollow chocolate bunny trend. As for the favorite way to eat a chocolate bunny, most people (79%) surveyed by the National Confectioners Association start with the ears, with the feet (17%) and tail (5%) far behind--though for chocolate lovers, how you start eating chocolate is probably less important than finishing it.

###

JMS Capital Group Wealth Services LLC

417 Thorn Street, Suite 300 | Sewickley, PA | 15143 | 412‐415‐1177 | jmscapitalgroup.com

An SEC‐registered investment advisor.

This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument or investment strategy. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be or interpreted as a recommendation. Any forecasts contained herein are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be relied upon as advice.