18 Surprising Facts About Easter Candy

Easter candy, it turns out, is a bigger deal to some people than attending church for the annual holiday, and some people even buy more candy for Easter than they buy for Halloween — just a couple facts about Americans and their Easter candy habits that may surprise you. Read on for more eye-openers about our annual spring sugar fest.

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Easter is a religious holiday that dates back centuries with little (okay, nothing) to do with candy, but a survey by Statista revealed that giving baskets of candy for the holiday is more of a tradition than attending church. About 60% of survey participants said they give Easter baskets, while 51% typically attend church.

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Given our apparent love for Easter candy, it shouldn't really be any surprise that, as a country, we typically drop a small fortune on the tradition. Americans are expected to spend $21.6 billion on Easter this year, according to the National Retail Federation, up significantly from the $18.1 billion it expected in 2019 (though down a bit from the $21.7 billion spent during our pandemic Easter). Of that amount, $3.04 billion will be for candy alone, the NRF estimates.

While Americans clearly love their Easter candy and spend a fortune on it, we love a bargain too. Statista found that 26% of its respondents said they like to buy reduced-price candy after Easter.

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Halloween is the logical top contender for sheer volume of candy sales, but Easter has been known to push its way into the No. 1 slot. The $3.04 billion in expected 2021 Easter candy sales is significantly bigger than the $2.4 billion it was projected we'd spend on Halloween candy in 2020.

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Even for chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies, brand matters. Thirty percent of respondents in the Statista survey said they pay attention to the brand when making their chocolate bunny and egg selections — and there are some brands we can recite from Easter experience: Peeps, Cadbury, Lindt …

Related: 25 Candymakers With Treats Almost Too Pretty to Eat

There's a small — very small — percentage of people who believe Easter candy is melted down or rewrapped Christmas candy: 4% of survey respondents, according to Statista.

Related: 20 Easter Recipes From Around the World

How many chocolate bunnies would you guess are made each year to satisfy Easter candy habits? Five million? Ten million? Not even close. A staggering 91 million chocolate bunnies are made annually, according to WalletHub.

Related: 18 Cheap Recipes That Celebrate Chocolate

About 76% of Americans believe the ears of the chocolate bunny should be eaten first, according to the online candy store Sweet Services. Only 4% of Americans say the feet get eaten first.

Related: We Tried 15 Kinds of Chocolate and These Are the Best

Though jelly beans, marshmallow chicks, and creme eggs are associated with Easter, Americans still prefer chocolate by far: A whopping 70% of Easter candy bought is chocolate.

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On average, kids prefer the red jelly bean to all others — which alone doesn't reveal much, because red jelly beans come in more than one flavor. Candy maker Jelly Belly, for instance, offers red jelly beans in sizzling cinnamon flavor, very cherry flavor, and red apple flavor.

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Since becoming associated with Easter in the 1930s, jelly beans have become a small but powerful force: close to 16 billion are eaten each year during the holiday. Which, if you had the time and the energy, could be lined up and would circle the globe nearly three times over.

Related: The Fun, Secret History Behind Jelly Beans and Other Sweets

There are also some very specific preferences about the best ways to eat jelly beans (at least among kids). About 70% of kids 6 to 11 prefer eating jelly beans one at a time, while 23% say they pop several in their mouth at once.

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About 30% of boys are more apt to eat a handful of jelly beans compared with 20% of girls, according to Sweet Services.

Related: How to Make Classic Childhood Candies

The largest chocolate egg ever created weighed 15,873 pounds — not much lighter than an elephant, according to WalletHub. The average adult elephant weighs 16,538 pounds.

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The largest chocolate Easter bunny ever made was 9,360 pounds. Separately, the most expensive Easter bunny rang in at $49,000 (and a whopping 548,000 calories). This bunny, which weighed 11 pounds, was made with cocoa from Tanzania and two (inedible) solitaire diamonds.

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Easter isn't just about jelly beans and chocolate bunnies. Each year between 1.4 billion and 1.5 billion marshmallow Peeps are eaten of up to 24 flavors of Peeps (though the Just Born brand ramped down production during the coronavirus pandemic and now offers nine nationwide) with options that have grown to include chocolate caramel, cotton candy, party cake, sour watermelon, and pancakes and syrup. There are even chocolate-covered Peeps. Unlike the five flavors introduced in 2019, this year is simply seeing the return of that year's Froot Loops, Hot Tamales fierce cinnamon, root beer float, and chocolate pudding flavors. Look at Target for raspberry flavored chicks in crème-flavored fudge; Chocolate Caramel Swirl Filled Delights Marshmallow Chicks in chocolate; and giant  bunny pops. Look at Walmart for individually wrapped chicks for egg hunts; and the chocolate pudding flavor.

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Sure, the country makes a lot of Easter candy, and we buy a lot, but we will still plan to tell our kids not to eat too much: About 90% or parents say they discuss eating candy in moderation with their kids. 

Related: The 20 Least Unhealthy Junk Foods

Yes, that's right — we will sit kids down and expound on cavities, dental bills, and hyperactivity, and once they look the other way, we will betray them. A full 81% of parents will steal from their kid's Easter stash, according to WalletHub.

Related: 14 Ways Parents Waste Money on Kids