Halloween is coming, and if you want to be the most popular trick-or treat house in North Carolina, load up on Snickers, M&M’s and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Just so you don’t have to do the research, BetCarolina.com took a break from our North Carolina sports betting coverage and tabulated the most popular chocolate candies in each state.
Halloween is Oct. 31 and National Chocolate Day is just before that, on Oct. 28. So BetCarolina.com used Statista’s research on the most consumed chocolate candy as a starting point, then we used Google Trends to search the level of interest in each chocolate candy from Oct. 1, 2023 to Oct. 31, 2023. We then determined the top three chocolate candies of each state.
No need to thank us. All those children with smiling faces and sugar rushes will be thanks enough.
State | Candy #1 | Candy #2 | Candy #3 |
Alabama | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Kit Kat | Snickers |
Alaska | Snickers | M&M’s | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Arizona | Kit Kat | Snickers | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Arkansas | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Snickers | M&M’s |
California | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Kit Kat | Milky Way |
Colorado | M&M’s | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Connecticut | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | M&M’s | Twix |
Delaware | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Milky Way | Snickers |
Florida | Milky Way | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Georgia | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix | Kit Kat |
Hawaii | M&M’s | Twix | Snickers |
Idaho | Snickers | Kit Kat | Twix |
Illinois | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Milky Way | Snickers |
Indiana | Snickers | Milky Way | Butterfinger |
Iowa | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Kit Kat | Snickers |
Kansas | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | M&M’s | Kit Kat |
Kentucky | Butterfinger | Kit Kat | Twix |
Louisiana | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | M&M’s | Hershey’s Milk Chocolate |
Maine | Kit Kat | Twix | M&M’s |
Maryland | Milky Way | Snickers | Butterfinger |
Massachusetts | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Snickers | M&M’s |
Michigan | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix |
Minnesota | Kit Kat | Butterfinger | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Mississippi | Kit Kat | M&M’s | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Missouri | Milky Way | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Kit Kat |
Montana | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix | Hershey’s Milk Chocolate |
Nebraska | Milky Way | Twix | Snickers |
Nevada | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix |
New Hampshire | M&M’s | Snickers | Butterfinger |
New Jersey | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Milky Way | Snickers |
New Mexico | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | M&M’s |
New York | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix |
North Carolina | Snickers | M&M’s | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
North Dakota | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Hershey’s Milk Chocolate | Kit Kat |
Ohio | M&M’s | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Milky Way |
Oklahoma | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix | Kit Kat |
Oregon | Twix | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Butterfinger |
Pennsylvania | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Milky Way | Twix |
Rhode Island | Snickers | Twix | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
South Carolina | Kit Kat | M&M’s | Hershey’s Milk Chocolate |
South Dakota | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Snickers |
Tennessee | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Kit Kat | Twix |
Texas | Snickers | M&M’s | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Utah | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Milky Way | Twix |
Vermont | Kit Kat | Twix | M&M’s |
Virginia | Twix | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | M&M’s |
Washington | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Butterfinger |
West Virginia | Snickers | Kit Kat | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
Wisconsin | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Twix | Butterfinger |
Wyoming | M&M’s | Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups | Hershey’s Milk Chocolate |
Candy naturally makes folks think of Halloween, so check out the top 10 Halloween costumes in North Carolina for 2024.
In addition to being the top choice of North Carolinians, Snickers is No. 1 in Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia. North Carolina’s second choice, M&M’s, is No. 1 in Colorado, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wyoming. The third choice, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, however, are most popular of all – the favorite in 19 states from Delaware to California. The second choice nationally is the Kit Kat bar, the top favorite in 12 states.
Clearly, there’s no logic behind a state’s favorite chocolate candies – geography, topography, politics are all irrelevant to America’s collective sweet tooth. The only other chocolates to get first place votes are Milky Way (Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska), Butterfinger (Kentucky), and Twix (Oregon, Virginia). And only one bar appeared on the chart without any first-place finishes – Hershey’s classic milk chocolate bar, which is the second choice in North Dakota, and third place in Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina and Wyoming. In the plains they like their chocolate plain.
Another area of interest in the chart is that all of the nation’s great regional brands – whether it’s See’s, Ghirardelli, Wilbur, Goldenberg’s, etc. – all play second banana to Big Chocolate. Reese’s, Kit Kat and Hershey are all in the Hershey family (although Kit Kat is a Nestlé brand outside America). M&M’s, Milky Way, Snickers, and Twix are part of Mars. Butterfinger is produced by the Ferrara Candy Company, after decades of being produced by Nestlé. Ferrera, based in Chicago, is confusingly owned by the Ferrero Group.
Overall, the chart shows that the most popular chocolate candy in the U.S. is the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, introduced in 1928 by the HB Reese Candy Co., located in Hershey, Pennsylvania – and has always been made using Hershey chocolate. In 1963, the company merged with Hershey. The peanut butter cup finished top three in 40 of 50 states, well ahead of Kit Kat, which took a top three spot in 26 of 50 states. Next up were Snickers and Twix with 20 top-three finishes each.
Snickers, Reese’s and Kit Kats are also among the top selling candy bars, so their popularity translates to people buying them and not just saying they love them. Each does about $2 billion a year in sales. Remember, sports betting is live in North Carolina as of March 2024 so get the best North Carolina sportsbook promos with us at BetCarolina.com.
Author
Howard Gensler is a veteran journalist covering the North Carolina sports betting market for BetCarolina.com. Before his focus on US sports betting, Howard worked at the Philadelphia Daily News, TV Guide and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Howard is also a founding editor of bettorsinsider.com.
Cited by leading media organizations, such as:
