Illinois Produces A Mind-Blowing Daily Amount Of A Certain Candy

Here we are, 10 days out from Halloween 2024, and if you've been doing it right, you're already tired of Halloween candy...or at least on your way.

Maybe it's just me, but it really seems like Halloween candy shows up everywhere you go around October 1st, giving us nearly a month to eat far more "fun-size" pieces of candy than we probably should. I'm always delighted to see the end of our candy supply being handed out on Halloween night.

Around this time of year, you'll see all sorts of articles about our favorite candies, our least favorite candies, which states prefer which candies...you get the idea. Since I already know what I love (100 Grand bars, Snickers, Skittles), and what I hate (Candy Corn, Circus Peanuts, popcorn balls with cat hair on them), I thought it would be fun to look at quantities.

In particular, the absolutely massive numbers of candy produced each day by some candy manufacturers, including right here in Illinois.

Tootsie Rolls Are Probably Not The Top Candy On Most Of Our Favorites Lists, But They're Still Beloved, And Tootsie Roll Industries Is Literally Making Tons Of Them

And they're making them right here in Illinois at 7401 S. Cicero Avenue in Chicago, where they've been cranking them out since the company moved to Chicago in 1968.

According to the Tootsie Rolls website, on average, 64 million Tootsie Rolls are produced every day. Taking those numbers and moving outward, we find that 64 million Tootsie Rolls per day means that they're knocking out:

• 44,440 every minute
• 740 per second
• 23 billion Tootsie Rolls per year

Just think, all of that work only to have someone leave one of them in their pocket or purse until the Tootsie Roll looks like this:

Then, they multiply.

Tootsie Rolls Produce A Huge Amount Of Product, But Skittles Make Even More

Not to say that Tootsie Rolls and their 64 million pieces per day isn't impressive, it's just that Skittles, according to their website, produces 200 million pieces per day, which breaks down to 70 billion per year.

Here are a couple more candies, along with their production numbers:

Peeps produces 5.5 million per day, which works out to being 2 billion every year.

Hershey's Kisses (called that because of the sound that the machine producing them makes) are cranked out at a rate of 70 million per day, or 25.5 billion a year.