A Sweet Estimation Question

So let’s the main candy-“population” consists of chocolate (~650 calories per dollar) (maybe 50% of all candy) and super cheap sugar-sweets (coming with something close to the prize of pure sugar => 2,500 calories per dollar) oh wow that’s quite a bit.

the average calories per dollar would be 1575 calories per dollar.
With $2.7 billion we have 4,250 billion calories.

So how much weigth does the american population gain if all the candy will be eaten in a short time without changing the rest of the usual diet?
With 3500 calories resulting in 1 lbs we get 4250B/3500 = 1.2 billion lbs for the whole population. Seems far away from what we can process, so let’s boil it down to the single person.
The US have a population of ~320 million inhabitants so dividing the overall weigth-“growth” by the number of inhabitants (so yes of course every child shares the sweets with their grandparents, siblings and everyone else so that everyone eats the same amount 😀 ), this gives a weigth growth per person of 3.75 lbs or 1,69 kg.

Enjoy your candy and don’t forget doing some extra rounds while running the next days 😉

Have a nice day,
Fred

A. Dollar spend per citizen (roughly):
$2.7 billion / 325 mil population = $8.3 per US citizen spend on candy only for this event

B. Price per candy unit:
1. Assumption: Dividing candy bought to give away and for self usage is in a relation of 66,66% to 33,33%, that means 2/3 are bought in big packs with a lot of small and different candy types while 1/3 is bought in normal sizes with only one candy type.

Price calculation:
Big packs = 2/3 * $8,3 = $5,5
Normal packs = 1/3 * $8,3 = $2,8

Big packs in the grocery stores usually contain around 50 pieces. The cost for one big pack in the grocery store is assumed to be $2,5. Big packs in whole sale contain more pieces (assumed 150) for $3. Assuming in america were the same amount of grocery and whole sale big packs sold, results in 100 pieces for $2,75 or 200 pieces for $5,5 (need for further calculation).

2. Assumption: Big packs have different sizes and candy types, so I chose to separate candy according to chocolate, soft, hard and other candy.

3. Assumption: According to the picture I assume that not all candy types are bought in equal quantities. To make the calculation easier, I assume that if all big packs were bought in america with different candy types, the standard US big pack would contain 100 pieces allocated as followed:
– Chocolate (bars) = 45%
– Marshmallows/Gummibaers (soft candy) = 25%
– Bonbons/Lollipops (hard candy) = 15%
– Other candy = 15%

4. Assumption: US citizen like sweeter candy, resulting in higher calories per candy type. Calories per candy type
– One big pack chocolate bars = 120 cal
– One big pack soft candy = 100 cal
– One big pack hard candy = 100 cal
– One big pack other candy = 60 cal

Summing up: One standard big pack contains 45*120 cal 25*100 cal 15*100 cal 15*60 cal = 10.300 cal for 100 pieces -> 130 cal per candy. But we assumed before that 200 pieces are sold for $5,5 that means each american bought 200 pieces of different candy types from big packs, resulting in 20.600 calories of candy.

Also each us citizen spent $2,8 on normal packs. A normal pack e.g. big chocolate bar, soft candy etc. is considered to have 300 cal. The price is for calculation purposes set to $1,40 per piece, which means that every american bought 2 pieces of normal pack candy with an average of 300 cal, meaning 2*300 cal = 600 cal extra.

Result:
Each american spent $8,3 for 21.200 cal (20.600 600) of candy. Assuming that 3.500 cal results in gaining 0,45 kilos, an US citizen would gain on average 21.200 cal/3.500 cal * 0,45 kilos = 2,73 kilos assuming that all candy is consumed in a short time period.

3.6 trillion calories
1.02 billion lbs increase in total weight increase

I made a spreadsheet with the detailed calculations of my entry:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yKLSL2ueKHb8_liV5n8o_Zg29ti-lzNTwc8aVX6OBdo/edit?usp=sharing

To sum it up: I took the 10 most popular candies, normalized their calories/usd according to their relative consumption relative to each other and arrived at the total weight gain of about 138.822.490kg which is about 140.000 tons of weight gain.

Hi Victor,

Happy (belated) Halloween! I’ve been reading your blog and emails for a while now but this is my first time posting a comment. I’m still fairly new to the world of consulting cases so here goes:

Market Size
– American population = 320M people
– Assuming there are 5 age groups in the population (0 – 20, 21 – 40, 41 – 60, 61 – 80, 80 – 100) and that the first four age groups eat the same amount of candy (let’s assume that the 80 – 100 age group doesn’t eat Halloween candy for reasons such as it is too sweet, do not like candy etc.)
– Therefore, 4/5 (80%) of the population eats candy = 320M x 80% = 256M Americans who eat candy

Candy Consumption
– $2.7B was the amount spent on Halloween candy
– Assume it costs $10/bag of candy (100 pieces inside each bag)
– $2.7B / ($10/100pieces per bag) = 27B pieces of candy

– If each piece of candy weighs 5g, and 454g = 1lb
– 454g/5g per piece of candy = 90 pieces of candy per pound

– With 27B pieces of candy in total and 90 pieces of candy per pound, 27B/90 = 300M pounds of candy consumed

Candy Calorie Consumption
– Assume 2500 calories per lb of candy
– Given that 3500 calories consumed translates to 1 lb gained
– 300M pounds of candy x 2500 calories per lb = 750B calories in all of the candy sold (and consumed)
– Assuming all 3500 calories an American eats comes from candy, 750B calories in all of the candy consumed/3500 calories consumed per lb gained = 214,285,714 lb gained

Therefore, after Halloween Americans will gain a total of 214M pounds.