South Dakota’s Favorite Halloween Candy Might Surprise You!

The Sweet History of Candy

Who knows where our love of candy began? Supposedly, the ancient Egyptians combined honey with nuts, fruits, and spices to create the first sweets, so I guess we can blame them for our eternal sweet tooth.

According to some estimates, Americans eat anywhere from 8 to 22 pounds of candy every single year! The National Institutes of Health indicate that about a fourth of Americans eat candy every single day, and I freely admit that if I always had it in my house - I'd be one of those Americans.

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Candy Store's Annual Candy Rankings

Candy Store is a direct-to-consumer online candy retailer, and every year they determine which candy each state's residents buy the most, therefore indicating what their favorites and least favorites are.

This year's South Dakota and Minnesota choices were kind of a surprise. South Dakota's favorite candy was Jolly Ranchers, and Minnesotans apparently ordered a lot of Hot Tamales. Iowans went with a more traditional and very popular choice - M&Ms.

In fact, according to Candy Store, the most popular candy in the U.S. this year is M&Ms. The second-place choice for the majority of Americans was a surprise too, because believe it or not, Americans ordered enough Sour Patch Kids to rocket them into that position.

Here are the Top 10 Most Popular 2026 Halloween Candies

1. M&Ms
2. Sour Patch Kids
3. Skittles
4. Reese's Cups
5. NERDS Gummy Clusters
6. Hot Tamales
7. Starburst
8. Candy Corn
9. Hershey's Mini Bars
10. Butterfinger

When it comes to the Worst Halloween Candies for 2026, they used a more universal approach - simply choosing the least favorite candies for the entire country.

Here are the Top 10 Worst 2026 Halloween Candies

1. Candy Corn (you'll notice this shows up on both lists - go figure)
2. Circus Peanuts
3. Peanut Butter Kisses (in the infamous black & orange wax wrappers)
4. Halloween Peeps (Don't they get enough grief the rest of the year? Come on!)
5. Necco Wafers (I loved these as a kid and still do. Recently, Hy-Vee had the chocolate ones on sale, and I indulged!)
6. Wax Coke bottles (Again, as kids we loved these stupid things.)
7. Mary Janes
8. Black Licorice (Don't eat too much or it'll kill ya!)
9. Almond Joy (How this could end up on a "worst" list I don't understand)
10. Smarties (However, you can plan on your kids bringing home plenty of these little chalky candies.

You can check out the Best Candy for each state on the Candy Store website.