The traditional autumn festival of spookiness offers forecourt operators a prime selling opportunity when it comes to sweets and chocolate. This year, October 31 falls on a Friday, prolonging the celebration and offering retailers the chance to boost their sales over the entire weekend.
For Oliver Blake, operations director at Oasis Services, Halloween is growing in importance for his family’s business in Long Riston, Hull.
“Halloween is bigger than Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day for us,” says Blake. “Sugar confectionery sells best, with Haribo packs of 22 mini bags and a five kilogram unbranded alternative flying off the shelves.”
He plans to devote two gondola ends to Halloween this year, in tandem with two Christmas end of aisle displays from mid-September. “The sweets will sell straightaway,” he says. “Halloween is starting to do better for us, and more and more people seem to be getting into it.”
This certainly reflects epos data from NIQ, which monitors grocery retailers including forecourt operators, and found last year that Halloween saw sugar confectionery grow 3.9% in volume, with value up 6.4%. On chocolate, the number of units grew by 1.8% on units sold, with value up 9.8%.
Mondelēz International says imore than half the UK population celebrates Halloween.
Goran Raven, who runs Raven’s Budgens petrol filling station in Abridge, Essex, says that with Halloween falling on a Friday this year he is optimistic about generating a healthy level of business.
“Halloween is always a bit hit and miss for us, and I’m never sure if I’m being honest whether it is luck or judgement when we get it right,” he says. ”We try to choose lines that we can sell afterwards for Fireworks Night as well, so that we are not left with unsold stock. But being on a Friday, our busiest day anyway, should really help.”
Here is a selection of launches for this year’s Halloween which should help retailers make the most of the occasion:
- Chupa Chups is collaborating with one of Netflix’s top streamed shows, Stranger Things, to launch two lollipop variants ahead of Halloween, and the final instalment of the series. Available in two different SKUs, the bags are filled with nine mystery flavours inspired by the famed characters and the fictional town where the series is set. From September 1 there will be point of sale and a social media campaign to connect with the core Gen Z audience. Bags of 17 lollipos retail at £2, and 10 units at £1.50.
- Bebeto, which describes itself as the leading confectionery challenger brand, says it is launching its “biggest and boldest” Halloween range yet with the addition of four new halal-certified products and new look packaging. This includes Witches Cauldron 130g bags of fruit flavoured, centre filled gummies in worm, frog, brain and spider shapes;160g packs of Mummies Bandages fruit flavour fizzy belts, and Witches Hair fruit flavour fizzy pencils with a sour coating and fondant centre, all retailing at £1. There is also a Spooky Mix multi-pack of 25 small 15g bags of mixed fruit gummies in ghost, pumpkin and skull shapes which retail at £2.50.
- Bon Bon’s Confectionery is adding Halloween-specific Spooky Eye lollipops to its US brand, Original Gourmet Lollies. The lollies last for over an hour and are in the same trending American flavours that the brand is known for, including Cotton Candy and Bubble gum. They retail at 99p.
- World of Sweets has over 40 Halloween-themed products to choose from, including new Candy Realms launches: Twisted Mallows, flavoured marshmallows with ’tongue painting candy goo’ retailing at £1.00 for 90g; Candy Realms Spooky Gummy Pops fruit flavour gummy lollipops in ghost, Frankenstein, witches hat and pumpkin characters, retailing at 50p; and Skull Mallow Pops retaling at £1 a stick. Also new for this year is the Crazy Candy Factory Monster Eyeball Ring Pop, an addition to the £1 novelty offering and available in strawberry, apple and blue razz. Customers can take the the ring out of the tub, wear it, and dip it into the sour sherbert.
- Highlights from this year’s Mondelēz International new Halloween confectionery include a Sour Patch Kids treatsize sharing pack of 20 bags retailing at £3, featuring watermelon and strawberry flavours. Also this year sees repurposed spooky-themed Wine Gums renamed Spooky Gums, and Liquorice Allsorts becoming Black & White Liquorice Mix, both retailing at £1 for 130g.
