March 09, 2018
Easter is less than a month away.
That means many children soon will eat enough candy to achieve peak sugar rush. Wonderful. Just wonderful.
Among those sweets that will be gathered during Easter egg hunts and basket openings across the region are jelly beans.
Jelly beans are a divisive candy. Some people love them. Some people hate them. And some other folks don't ever think about them, which is their right as Americans.
Fall where you may on that spectrum, the fact remains that enough of them are eaten that bulk retailer Candy Store took it upon themselves to crunch some numbers on which jelly bean flavors are most popular in each state. (Methodology: 12,000 votes received and merged with a "decade of jelly bean sales data.)
(They took a similar approach with Valentine's Day candies, as you may remember.)
They were spurred on by a couple of facts: Americans apparently eat more than 16 billion jelly beans on Easter – this just doesn't sound accurate to me, but what do I know as I'm not a bulk-candy retailer – and National Jelly Bean Day falls on April 22.
In any event, nationally speaking, black licorice was America's favorite flavor last year. This year, buttered popcorn unseated them atop the squishy heap. Raise your hand if you, like me, did not realize that there was a buttered popcorn-flavored jelly bean.
The 30th out of 30 flavors ranked? Pomegranate. (Let's do that hand-raising thing again now, shall we?)
Anyway, the point of this post is to share with you three most popular jelly bean flavors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. These are things that people need to know, after all.
So, with no further ado, the rankings (presented in gold-to-bronze medal stand order). Interestingly enough, only one flavor appears multiple times, meaning people across the region can't even agree on jelly-bean flavors.
What a time to be alive.
Pennsylvania: Blueberry, Black Licorice, Green Apple
New Jersey: Black Licorice, Peach, Cherry
Delaware: Cinnamon, Toasted Marshmallow, Buttered Popcorn
