October 30 is National Candy Corn Day. Since its invention in the 1880s, candy corn has gone from a sweet autumn treat to a tried and true Halloween classic. When those bags of yellow, orange and white triangles hit store shelves, you know Halloween is just around the corner. Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods America, perfectly sums up this simple confection perfectly: “One of my fave OG [original gangster] candies. Brilliant. Three colors, but all the same flavor. Triply brilliant.” Let’s face it, candy corn is pretty much straight sugar with a hint of vanilla and that addictive not quite chewy, not quite melt in your mouth mellocreme texture.
And while candy corn may be a classic, it’s also one of the most polarizing Halloween candies. You’ll often find it at the top of both most beloved and most despised lists. According to the National Confectioners Association, “When it comes to candy corn, 52 percent of people say it’s just not Halloween without it (48 percent of people say they’d just as soon skip it).” So in honor of this controversial Halloween treat, here are 15 fascinating candy corn facts.
1. All-American
The true inventor of candy corn is a mystery, but legend has it that candy corn was invented in the 1880s by George Renniger at the Wunderle Candy Co. in Philadelphia. candy corn was the kernel that grew into gourmet jelly bean giant, Jelly Belly. In 1898 Jelly Belly’s Ohio factory, then called Goelitz Confectionary Company, began manufacturing candy corn which became their bread and butter for the next 75 years. As Jelly Belly chairman Herm Rowland says, “We have precise formulas and recipes for candy corn. We used to make licorice candy corn, chocolate candy corn. It was our lifeblood in the beginning.”
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