Right about now you’re probably seeing it everywhere – on shelves near registers at the grocery store, in tiny bags your kids beg you to open and in bowls at Halloween parties…that white, orange and yellow confectionary treat called ‘candy corn.’ Love it or hate it, candy corn has a long history dating back to the 1800s and shows no sign of retiring soon. After all, Brach’s alone produces 2 billion kernels of candy corn per year.
Many have documented how it’s made, but we at Adecco get a little nerdy about jobs every now and then. So we’d love to take that a step further and share all the jobs behind your next handful of candy corn – the entire production journey from its humble beginnings on a farm to its polished and packaged glory in your grocery bag. Enjoy!
The people who helped make your candy corn.
Ingredients include: corn syrup, sugar, gelatin, fondant (or marshmallow), food dye, corn starch, and edible wax and glaze.
Farmers grow raw materials for several of candy corn’s ingredients including corn (for corn syrup and corn starch) and sugar. Fun fact: There are thousands of types of corn, but yellow #2 dent corn is the primary source of corn syrup. In the U.S., it’s mostly grown in the Midwest.
Factory workers of all types (i.e. machine operators, packaging specialists, picker packers and assemblers) help run the machinery in the factories responsible for properly preparing, storing and shipping candy corn. While candy corn was originally made by hand, the cooking process is now fully mechanized.
Engineers create, maintain and repair the machinery used to mix, cook, mold and polish candy corn.
Plant managers oversee the factory and the production process of candy corn.
Quality control analysts are on-hand to ensure that the production process is operating effectively and that each and every kernel will have the look, taste and texture you expect from quality candy corn.
Retail buyers anticipate consumer demand for the product by studying past trends and current projections. In doing so, they determine how much candy corn their organizations will purchase for their customers.
Shipping and logistics coordinators then coordinate the delivery of a retailer’s bulk candy corn purchase from warehouses to any and every vehicle necessary to get the candy corn to its many retail locations.
Drivers transport candy corn from warehouses all over the country to retail locations where consumers can purchase it.
Merchandisers determine not only the prime location(s) for candy corn in their stores, but how it will be displayed for optimum selling power.
Cashiers are candy corn’s final stop before going home with a consumer. They ring up the candy corn purchase and collect the final payment.
While we listed just 10 jobs behind your candy corn purchases this Halloween, there could have been so many more! If we were really serious, we’d have gotten into every job along the way of growing, producing, buying and shipping each and every ingredient in candy corn, let alone the candy, itself. But we thought that might be getting a little carried away.