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By Reid Wilson
The Washington Post
The days are getting shorter, pumpkin spice lattes have returned,and grocery stores across America are stocking up on those weird decorative gourds. Halloween is approaching.
As they pick out their costumes, the estimated 41 million childrenof trick-or-treating age in the United States can thank the state of Pennsylvania for the abundance of treats ahead. Odds are that some of the loot those kids will score on Oct. 31 will come from the Keystone State.
"Pennsylvania is unofficially known as 'America's sweetspot,' " said Susan Whiteside, a vice president at the National Confectioners Association. More than 10,000 people work for more than 200 candy companies scattered from Philadelphia to Lancaster to Bethlehem, which together make $5 billion worth of candy every year out of the estimated $34 billion worth of candy produced in 2012.
Perhaps no single city in America is more synonymous with candy than Hershey, Pa., a town of 14,000 where the streetlights are shaped like Hershey's Kisses. The Hershey Co., the world's fifth-largest candy producer, has half a dozen plants around the country; most in Pennsylvania, where the company was founded in 1894. That year, Milton Hershey began making chocolate to coat the caramels that his Lancaster-based company produced. (The first Kisses were manufactured in 1907.)
The commonwealth is also home to Just Born, maker of Peeps marshmallow treats. Mars — which makes M&Ms, Starburst, Twix and Snickers, all popular Halloween choices — is based in New Jersey but has a factory in Elizabethtown, Pa.
Pennsylvania contributes more to Halloween than candy. Agricultural producers harvested 6,500 acres of pumpkins in 2013, more than any other state besides Illinois, the undisputed gourd capital of the United States. The Pennsylvania crop was worth $15.5 million to state farmers, about a tenth of the value of the nation's pumpkin harvest that year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Candy from plenty of other states will satiate sweet tooths this Halloween. California produces $2 billion in confections every year, of which Jelly Bellys and Ghirardelli chocolate are a big part. Wrigley products and Tootsie Rolls are made in Illinois, which manufactures $1.5 billion worth of candy annually. New York and New Jersey round out the top five producers.
The candy industry employed 37,150 Americans in 2012, according to the Census Bureau. If other states want a bigger piece of that sweet action, they'll have to dislodge Pennsylvania from the top of the heap.