With Halloween night just a few days away, Canadians are preparing for the candy hunt and the majority of them have decided to buy treats that they would eat themselves, and they will choose them according to their price in this time of year. inflation, a recent study from Dalhousie University found.
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Canadians are expected to spend an average of $22.40 on treats, which amounts to $486 million nationwide for the month of October 2022, the report from the University’s Agri-Food Analytical Sciences Laboratory revealed on Wednesday.
This sum is 62% more than that spent in 2020, which was the first Halloween night in the COVID era.
Nearly 62% of respondents indicated that they would select the sweets they would eat, while 52.9% of them indicated that price was an important factor in their choice.
“Having excess candy after Halloween is probably something Canadians have in mind when selecting and buying, so even if there is a surplus of candy, it’s not considered. as a burden or a problem”, explained in a press release Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Laboratory.
On the Quebec side, 52.5% of respondents mentioned that the price was decisive in their purchase of candy.
Walmart is favored by 22.7% of Canadians surveyed for buying sweets, followed by Costco (21.2%) and discount groceries (20.7%).
According to Lab research associate Janet Music, expectations are high for the evening, despite the fact that it falls on a Monday.
“It is likely since this is the first Halloween in three years with limited public health restrictions. Most Canadians expect a fairly normal Halloween when they anticipate the crowds for the candy hunt,” she said.
This survey was conducted among 5,530 Canadians between October 12 and October 17, 2022.