America’s 8 Most Hated Halloween Candies, Ranked and Candy Corn Is Back in the Hot Seat
Halloween has plenty of villains, but this year’s candy controversy does not involve a masked stranger or a haunted basement. It involves candy corn, which has reclaimed the No. 1 spot on CandyStore.com’s list of the worst Halloween candies. The retailer’s 2026 survey of 3,200 customers ranked the seasonal staple above Circus Peanuts, Peanut Butter Kisses, and several other familiar treats. Consider it a verdict from one candy-loving crowd, not a command to surrender your secret stash.
The ranking also brought a new arrival to the Halloween hot seat: Peeps. The marshmallow candy landed at No. 4 on the worst list, making its debut among the survey’s least-loved treats. Meanwhile, Circus Peanuts finally escaped the bottom position after three consecutive surveys there. That is not exactly a triumphant comeback, but when the competition is “most disliked candy,” moving to second place counts as breathing room. al
Who Voted and What the Survey Actually Tells Us
CandyStore.com’s annual ranking reflects participating customers’ opinions, not a nationally representative sample of Americans. The company published a top 10; the eight candies below are the first eight entries on that worst-candy list, presented as a countdown. Almond Joy and Smarties took ninth and tenth place, respectively, so they narrowly missed this lineup. The distinction matters: these are survey results, not eight treats someone picked to pick a fight with your candy bowl.
“Do you have strong opinions about Halloween candy? Sure you do,” CandyStore.com blogger Ben George wrote, according to AL.com’s coverage. “Everybody does. So every year we ask CandyStore.com customers to settle it.” George described the process as having “no guesswork, no borrowing from other people’s lists, and no editorial thumb on the scale.” That explains where the ranking comes from, but a customer poll still can’t show what every American, or every trick-or-treater on your street, wants to eat.
The 8 Halloween Candies That Landed on the Naughty List
Black Licorice
Black licorice takes eighth place, making it the least poorly ranked candy in this countdown, a distinction its defenders might reasonably celebrate. George noted that it ranked seventh in the retailer’s 2024 ranking, so its position has improved from that earlier result. The key limit is that placement alone doesn’t explain why respondents disliked it or how strongly they felt. Black licorice made the list, but the reported ranking doesn’t explain, flavor by flavor, why it lost.
Mary Janes
Mary Janes finished seventh, placing the old-fashioned candy just ahead of black licorice on the dislike scale. Manufacturer Atkinson Candy describes its flavor profile as peanuts and molasses, and its current bite-size version uses real molasses and peanut butter. That gives readers a clearer picture of the candy than a vague dismissal of it as “something from Grandma’s purse.” Whatever its nostalgic appeal, Mary Janes still landed among this customer group’s eight least-favorite Halloween treats.
Wax Coke Bottles
The survey’s sixth-place entry is listed as “Wax Coke Bottles,” putting novelty candy firmly in the danger zone. For a familiar example of the format, Tootsie’s Nik-L-Nip consists of wax bottles filled with fruit-flavored liquid, marketed with the invitation to bite, drink, and chew. That is a noticeably different experience from unwrapping a candy bar, although the ranking does not establish that the format caused its poor showing. The bottles brought their own tiny beverage service to Halloween, yet still ranked sixth.
Necco Wafers
Necco Wafers took fifth place, proving that a long history does not guarantee a warm reception in this poll. Spangler Candy says the wafers were introduced in 1847 and remain available in eight flavors: chocolate, licorice, cinnamon, lemon, lime, orange, wintergreen and clove. That is a surprisingly varied lineup for a candy sold in such a straightforward roll. Its historical staying power and broad flavor assortment are verified product details, but neither kept it out of the survey’s bottom five.
Peeps
Peeps made the worst-candy list for the first time and jumped straight to fourth place. The marshmallow treats aren’t limited to their familiar Easter look; AL.com notes that the company also makes Halloween shapes. Their placement makes them one of the notable changes in this year’s results, rather than simply another returning name. However, the survey ranking doesn’t show whether respondents objected to the marshmallow itself, its seasonal presentation, or something else, so blaming a particular feature would go beyond the evidence.
Peanut Butter Kisses
Peanut Butter Kisses claimed third place, leaving them firmly inside the survey’s least-loved trio. They are a separate entry from Mary Janes, which ranked seventh, so don’t combine the two when recounting the results. Compared with the 2024 list, George’s Peanut Butter Kisses ranked one position lower on the worst-candy chart than their earlier second-place finish. That is a modest improvement, although third place still means this survey’s respondents gave the candy little reason to celebrate.
Circus Peanuts
Circus Peanuts finished second, finally yielding the worst-candy crown after three consecutive surveys at No. 1. Despite the name, Spangler describes Circus Peanuts as a marshmallow candy, with origins in the 1800s; the company developed its own recipe in 1941. The latest result gives this longtime confection a reprieve, not a clean bill of popularity. It remains the runner-up on a list nobody wants to lead, but at least another candy is absorbing the biggest Halloween argument this year.
Candy Corn
Candy corn is back at No. 1, reclaiming a position it previously held from 2019 through 2021. George acknowledged the return with a suitably dramatic assessment: “Well, it’s back. At the very bottom, or the very top, depending on how you look at it.” The result places it ahead of every other candy in the retailer’s 2026 worst-candy ranking. For anyone who loves the seasonal staple, that is an invitation to disagree with 3,200 survey participants, not evidence that your taste buds are broken.
Related: 10 Candy Bars From the ’70s That Disappeared but Never Left Americans’ Memories
Why “Most Hated” Does Not Mean Nobody Is Buying It
Here is the twist: candy corn also placed eighth nationally in CandyStore.com’s separate 2026 sales-based ranking. Those results measure different things, so they are not inherently contradictory. A survey records what participating customers say they like or dislike, while a sales ranking tracks purchasing through the retailer’s data. Candy corn can therefore perform well in the sales analysis while also topping the dislike poll; the available findings do not tell us exactly why individual shoppers bought it.
The useful takeaway from this Halloween showdown is that the ranking is a snapshot of customer opinion, not a universal shopping rule. It identifies eight candies that performed poorly in one retailer’s survey, without proving that every child will reject them or that their fans have vanished. Candy corn’s simultaneous appearance on the worst-candy and sales lists makes that distinction especially clear. The survey has crowned its Halloween villain, but the candy aisle has not necessarily agreed to banish it.
