Candy Professor

Candy Sales Up in Recession

September 24, 2009 at 9:16 pm 4 comments

San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that candy sales are strong in California, even as unemployment tops 12%. The Candy Store, on Vallejo Street, reports surging demand for nostalgia candies. Meanwhile, purveyors of high end chocolates are seeing a drop in demand.

We saw a similar story reported from New York last spring, as the economy showed signs of failure to recover in the wake of the bail-out and stimulus plan. Economy Candy, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, couldn’t keep the shelves stocked.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a connection between hard times and candy eating. American candy consumption grew faster during the Great Depression of the 1930s than at any other time in the twentieth century. For some, candy bars were more than just a treat. The Depression gave us such memorable but long-gone candy bars as: Chicken Dinner, Chicken Bone, Denver Sandwich, and Idaho Spud. A chicken dinner might be out of a hungry man’s reach, but a Chicken Dinner could take the edge off. Many of today’s favorite confections were launched during the Depression, including Snickers, Mars with Almonds, and Three Musketeers.

The turn to candy when things are rough isn’t so surprising. Candy is sweet, it tastes good, it’s simple, it connects to less complicated times. And sugar has pain-reducing properties, which might help too in these hard times.

Sources:Candy sales strong despite recession, Robert Selna. San Fransico Chronicle, 23 Sept. 2009;When Economy Sours, Tootsie Rolls Soothe Souls, Christine Haughney. New York Times, 23 March 23 200; Joel Glenn Brenner, The Emporers of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars (1999)

Entry filed under: Candies We Miss, Candy Nostalgia, Current Candy News, Economy, Uncategorized, WWI to WWII. Tags: California, candy bars, candy sales, candy store, depression, New York, recession, San Francisco.