There's one Halloween sweet that splits America in two. Fans call it "sugary bliss". Haters say a bowl of it looks like "a bowl of old teeth". Meet candy corn: a little triangle of sugar in three stripes, yellow at the bottom, orange in the middle, white at the tip, made to look like a kernel of corn.
How much do they eat?
A lot. Brach's, the biggest maker, produces about 30 million pounds every autumn season, roughly 13.6 million kilos. Back in 2016, total US production was estimated at around 35 million pounds, close to 9 billion pieces. Brach's holds about 85% of the market at Halloween. Sales reached $75 million in one recent year, according to the research firm Circana.
What's in it?
Mostly sugar and corn syrup. Add some honey, salt, gelatin, artificial flavour and food colouring. So far, so normal. Then there's the shine. Candy corn is coated in confectioner's glaze, which is made from lac resin. And lac resin is a sticky substance produced by tiny insects. Yes. That glossy finish on your Halloween sweet comes from a bug.
Before you spit it out: the same kind of glaze is used on lots of shiny sweets and even some fruit. You've probably eaten it many times without knowing. Now you know. Sorry.
Nineteen pieces have about 140 calories and 28 grams of sugar, which is similar to many other Halloween treats. Not health food, but not a monster either.
How it's made
Candy corn was first made by hand. Workers cooked sugar, corn syrup and water into a thick slurry, then added fondant and marshmallow. Each colour layer had to be poured separately. Today machines do the work, but the method still uses moulds made of cornstarch. Machines mix, cook, mould and polish the sweets, while people run and repair the machines and quality-control staff check the look, taste and texture.
Even the corn syrup starts on a farm. It's mostly made from a type of corn called yellow dent corn, grown largely in the American Midwest. So candy corn really does come from corn. Just not directly.
An old, old sweet
Candy corn is more than 130 years old. The story goes that a man named George Renninger, who worked at the Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia, created it in the 1880s, and the company started selling it in 1888. Nobody is completely sure, but it's the legend everyone repeats. One early version was sold as "Chicken Feed", with a rooster on the box and the slogan "Something worth crowing for". The company that sold it is now Jelly Belly. Brach's joined in 1920.
Brach's once tried a "Turkey Dinner" candy corn mix, for Thanksgiving. It lasted two years from 2020. A company executive, Katie Duffy, called it "newsworthy but perhaps not consumption-worthy". That might be the most honest thing a sweet company has ever said.
So is it good or not?
A candy science professor, Richard Hartel, said "it's not any sweeter than a lot of other candy". Fans are passionate. One said he loves it "even though it looks like it should taste like a candle". A comedian called it "objectively kind of gross, but that's what makes it good". There's even a National Candy Corn Day, on 30 October, the day before Halloween.
What it means for you
If you've never tried it, a few pieces won't hurt. You'll either love it or understand the haters in three seconds. Just eat it knowing what you're eating: sugar, more sugar, and a little help from an insect.