Kansas has a new favorite Valentine’s Day candy this year
You know that big ball of twine in Cawker City in north-central Kansas?
The quirky tourist attraction weighs about 20,000 pounds – and that’s nothing compared to how many pounds of heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are purchased in Kansas for Valentine’s Day.
Over 78,000 pounds of heart-shaped chocolate boxes are purchased in Kansas leading up to Valentine’s Day, making that candy the most popular of the season, according to candy distributor CandyStore.com.
Kansans’ second and third favorite Valentine’s Day candies are M&Ms and Ghiradelli Gift Boxes, the survey showed.
But Kansas’ love for the heart-shaped boxes do not quite match the feelings of the rest of the nation.
“An interesting trend revealed itself in the numbers,” CandyStore.com said. “Those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates that have reigned supreme in our minds as the quintessential Valentine’s Day candy? They aren’t number one anymore. They’re been usurped.”
Conversation hearts made up 10.2 percent of Valentine’s Day candy sales nationwide in 2017, compared to the heart-shaped chocolate boxes making up 9.6 percent of sales.
To find out which candies are most popular, the candy distributor looked at sales data between Jan. 1 and Feb. 14 for the past 10 years. The data came from both the store’s records and from other industry partners.
“This is a significant deviation from what we expected,” CandyStore.com said. “The classic heart-shaped boxes of chocolates are so ingrained in our minds as synonymous with Valentine’s Day. Obviously, conversation hearts are popular too, but no one expected them to be more popular.”
CandyStore.com expects more than 40 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate to be sold for Valentine’s Day this year. Caramel-flavored chocolates are the most popular in those boxes, they said.
See below to find out the favorite Valentine’s Day candies of all 50 states:
Kaitlyn Alanis: 316-269-6708, @kaitlynalanis
This story was originally published February 8, 2018 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Kansas has a new favorite Valentine’s Day candy this year."