How Sweet It Is Candy Industry Pitches New Wares At Trade Show

The first All-Candy Expo, representing 90 percent of America’s candy industry, has arrived showcasing toffee and taffy, chocolate and chewing gum in mouth-watering displays that promise to reveal all you ever wanted to know about candy but didn’t care to ask.

A trip down the cavernous aisles at Chicago’s Navy Pier reveals a world of delicious goodies where it’s easy to feel like, well, a kid in a candy store.

There’s the kind of candy that melts in your mouth, not in your hand. And over there - if you have the time and patience - you might try to find out just how many licks it does take to get to the center of a certain lollipop. There’s even the Everlasting Gobstopper, made of course by the Willy Wonka Candy Factory.

But the real purpose of the expo is to give buyers - supermarkets, mass merchandisers and drug stores - the chance to see the latest innovations as they gear up for the Halloween candy-buying period.

Movie and television tie-ins appeared to be as popular as ever, with dinosaur gum and candy, and glow in the dark alien suckers on the shelves.

Candy/toy combos also are becoming more popular. New to the market is the Tootsie Pop Trembler, a handheld device that can cause your lollipop to tremble and your teeth to rattle. And Hasbro has expanded beyond the toy business by producing a line of candy toys featuring Mr. Potato Head with candies inside, a miniature Connect Four game and candy set and Monopoly gum.

“We’re taking what we already know are kids’ favorite brands and marrying them with what we know are kids’ favorite snack foods,” said Leigh Anne Cappello, of the Hasbro Toy Group.

Expo organizers hope the show highlights the fact that just everybody wants candy.