The Candy Capitals of the U.S.

To determine which local economies are most reliant on the candy industry, researchers at Upgraded Points created a composite score that factored in the concentration of employment, payroll, and locations of candy producers and candy retail stores compared to the national average. For example, while California—the birthplace of Ghirardelli, See’s, and Jelly Belly, among others—leads the nation in overall candy industry employment, the percentage of California workers in the candy industry is only about 1.4 times higher than the national average.

On the other hand, while Vermont employs a much smaller number of candy workers overall, the concentration of candy workers in Vermont is nearly 4.5 times the national average. Vermont—home of Lake Champlain Chocolates and a wide variety of maple sugar candy producers—also boasts the highest concentration of candy businesses in the nation, making it the U.S. state economy most dependent on the candy industry. Other top-ranked state candy capitals include Illinois—home of Ferrara Candy Company, Tootsie Roll, and Wrigley’s—as well as New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

At the local level, the nation’s prominent candy capitals are a mix of small towns with one or two large candy manufacturing brands—like the Vallejo-Fairfield, California metro, which is home to Jelly Belly, or the Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pennsylvania metro that houses Hershey—as well as popular tourist hotspots, like beach towns that produce saltwater taffy, among other popular boardwalk candies.

Here are the top 15 candy capitals of the U.S. at the metro level.