Shops hopping with candy sales

By Tatiana Zarnowski, March 20, 2005

Last updated: Sunday, March 20, 2005 1:51 PM EST

Local businesses benefit when the Easter Bunny hops into town.

Stores that sell candy and gifts get the highest returns from a holiday that celebrates renewal and spring.

"Easter is probably the largest candy season of the year," surpassing Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, says Richard Gobin, owner of Quality Care Pharmacy in South Middleton Township and Holly Pharmacy in Mt. Holly Springs.

Christmas is still king of candy sales, adds Christine Garrison, owner of Christine's Chocolate Creations in Carlisle.

Although children still get most of the gifts — Gobin estimates 60 to 70 percent of the candy items he sells goes to them — a growing number of adults, especially women, get Easter treats, he says.

Old standbys such as jelly beans are still popular, Gobin says. "Most of the adults' (gifts) are not novelty-type things. It would just be a nice box of chocolates," he says.

Nice chocolates are Garrison's specialty. She makes and sells chocolate bunnies, eggs, flowers and other animals for people to put in their Easter baskets.

Hollow or solid?

Garrison makes both solid and hollow bunnies in milk, dark and white chocolate.

Dark chocolate has gained popularity recently, she says. "I think (people) are reading about the health benefits of it."

The Easter Bunny might have a hard time carting around her biggest creation: a two-and-a-half-foot solid chocolate bunny weighing 18 pounds.

"You'd probably have to get an ax to break him up," Garrison says.

She makes European-style hollow chocolate eggs that she fills with chocolate, jelly beans or coated chocolate candies.

Ruth Wiser, owner of the Lollipop Shop in Shippensburg, says carrot- and egg-shaped lollipops are good sellers. "I've had a lot of grandparents and great-grandparents in buying."

Whether people will want hollow or solid bunnies is an unpredictable part of the season, she says. "It's kind of funny because you can make a lot of hollow things and they want solid."

Customers have requested candies shaped like cows and roosters this year, Wiser says.

Filling own baskets

A spokeswoman for Rite Aid stores says an increasing number of people are assembling their own Easter baskets rather than buying the pre-made kind that Rite Aid and most other stores also sell.

"Customers might make a sports theme basket" with sports cards, toy cars and candy, says Julie Vastyan.

But at Wiser's store, many people still want baskets that she assembles, although they'll often bring in their own basket for tradition's sake. "If they call one day, we can put them together the next day."

Novelty items — bunnies, carrot-shaped candy containers and Pez dispensers with Easter themes — sell well, Vastyan says.

At Gobin's pharmacies, many people who buy Easter gifts really came in for something else. "If they come in for one item, they may also leave with a gift item."

In addition to candy, children's Easter baskets may contain toys such as jump ropes, sidewalk chalk and anything animated, Vastyan says. "Anything that sings or dances (and) has a ‘Try Me' sticker on it" is popular.

Flowers aren't fattening

Those who want to give something non-fattening might opt for flowers.

Hyacinths and tulips sell the best at this time of year, says Jeff Winand, owner of Jeffrey's Flowers shops in Carlisle and Mechanicsburg.

For an all-flower Easter basket, people can buy a pot of plants.

Easter ranks after Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day for flower sales, Winand says.

"Unfortunately, it's not as big as it used to be."

Vendors who come in from out of town and set up flower tents take away from local florists' business, he says.

So do grocery stores, which sell cut flowers and planted bulbs at Easter, says Wayne Noss, owner of Wayne Noss Flowers in Boiling Springs. "If you're buying your groceries, I can understand that you just pick one up."

Different tastes

At his store, more people buy cut flowers than bulbs for Easter, he says.

But at Flowers at Mountain Lakes in West Pennsboro Township, customers buy more bulbs, says president Keith Pomraning.

After the flowers die back, bulbs can be planted outside and they'll bloom the next year at the normal time, he points out.

Churches that used to mix hyacinths with their Easter lily arrangements are now going back to all lilies, Pomraning says.

But some Easter traditions have gone by the wayside.

"Very few people wear corsages anymore to church," Noss says. "It's a thing of the past."

How well do you know Peter Cottontail?

• Well-known for its fertility, the rabbit as an Easter symbol seems to have originated in Germany, according to www.holidays.net.



• The ancestor to today's packaged chocolate bunny was first made of pastry and sugar in Germany during the early 1800s.



• Colored Easter eggs were painted to represent the sunlight of spring.



• The Easter traditions we celebrate today merge a Christian event — the resurrection of Christ — with the Jewish Passover and pagan festivals associated with the vernal equinox.

• The first chocolate eggs were made in Europe in the early 19th century and remain among the most popular treats associated with Easter.



• According to the Guinness World Records, the largest Easter egg ever made was just over 25 feet high and made of chocolate and marshmallow. The egg weighed 8,968 pounds and was supported by an internal steel frame.

• Seventy-six percent of people eat the ears on chocolate bunnies first.
• Ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are made for Easter each year.
• Sixteen billion jelly beans are made for Easter.
• Each day, five million marshmallow chicks and bunnies are produced in preparation for Easter.
• Easter is the second top-selling confectionery holiday, with Halloween in first place.
• Eighty-eight percent of adults carry on the Easter tradition of making Easter baskets for their kids.
• Red jelly beans are kids' favorite.