The Great Halloween Candy Heist of 2013

I can’t be the only parent who looked at her child’s candy score from last night and asked, “Where did all the candy go?”

As with every year, I painstakingly went through each piece of loot to be sure there were no razor blades, that all of the packages were tightly sealed, and that there were no pinholes indicating the possibility of some tainted needle full of poison. This year, I discovered that another crime was afoot – a heist had taken place!

This year, there seemed to be a mysterious disappearance…that of half or more of each candy bar. Both the size of the candies and the quantity were notably smaller than in years past.

Although calling something with only three bites “fun-sized” is a little misleading, last year’s fun size was WAY more fun than this year’s. Most of the “candy bars” that my child got this year were more like “candy bites”. The Mars candies were particularly tiny, offering only one bite per “bar.” Hershey’s offerings boasted the same size package, but a thin, deflated bar of chocolate in comparison to last year’s chunkier candy.

A sure sign of the decimation of our economy, back in 2007 The Daily Mail reported that Mars had reduced the size of their candies by 7.2%. Initially the company attempted to cloak this in benevolence, saying that they were doing their part to help counteract the obesity crisis, however when pressured, they admitted:

‘Like all food manufacturers, we have seen continued cost increases over the last few years,’ it said in a statement.

‘We look to absorb the vast majority of these costs by being more efficient, but on occasion we have to consider increasing prices.

‘By slightly reducing portion sizes on Mars and Snickers we were able to continue to responsibly meet consumer demands for healthier lifestyles whilst not increasing our prices.’ (source)

For several years now, food manufacturers have been hiding increasing food costs by tucking the food away in smaller packages marked at the same price. This sleight of hand did not fool consumers for long. Despite official inflation numbers, people are getting less actual food for the same amount of money. Zero Hedge reports:

ConvergEx’s Nick Colas notes that the severe drought in the Midwest over the summer of 2012 will likely drive up food costs this year 3-4% across the board, by the USDA’s estimates. These headline numbers, however, don’t accurately reflect the prices of the real “basket of goods” that we bring to the checkout counter every week at the grocery store…In short, inflationary expectations may well be set to rise dramatically in 2013: “shopping cart inflation” was upwards of 1.3% last month, almost double the 0.7% overall CPI. (source)

People seemed to be handing out smaller quantities of treats too. Conspicuously absent were the little plastic treat bags filled with 3-5 pieces of candy – families were doling out one piece per trick-or-treater this year, a very likely reflection on the fact that nearly half of America is unemployed or underemployed and that poverty in America is exploding.

Of course, a little less high-fructose corn syrup is not really a bad thing for most kids. But it is a sure sign of the economic times when a kid who used to come home with a big pillowcase full of sugar only scores a small half bag, because of dwindling package sizes and tighter household budgets all the way around. We can only expect things to get worse, too – today is the day that SNAP benefits drop across the country, making grocery shopping an even more painful experience for more than 47 million recipients of government assistance.