Page 12, This week, the bunny's gonna bring you Easter candy

Sweet dreams: Here's some things about the Cadbury Eggs, the jelly beans,
the Peeps and all of the other sugar-loaded pastel candies in your basket
you probably never even realized

Features column by Justin swanson, 04/01/96

Mmmm, nougat. It's Eastertime again. You can always count on Easter to get
you sick to your stomach on all kinds of special candies the confectioners
market just for the season.

Unfortunately, many Easter candies lack nougat. Darn.

Not everyone celebrates Easter, of course, but people of all religions
(and non-religions) can experience the stomachaches and joys of consuming
mass quantities of Easter candies.

Despite what most people think, Cadbury's Creme Egg, a Hershey product, is
actually the number two Eastertide seller.

A Hershey telephone service holding the key to the nutritional information
of the "milk chocolate with soft fondant-creme center" stated that the egg
has 190 calories and 8 grams of fat.

Mike Kinney, public relations specialist with Hershey, said the best
selling times of year, in order, are back-to-school / Halloween,
Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day.

The first creme egg was "laid" in 1923, Kinney said. The egg, which is
manufactured in Bournville, England, originally had only a white creme
center. The more realistic version of the candy egg, the one we know
today, came in 1971 with the addition of yellow coloring to the creamy
center.

England exports 300 million chocolate eggs per year; the plant in England
can make 66,000 eggs per minute, or one million eggs each day, said
Kinney.

The industry's number one Easter seller is the Reese's chocolate-covered
peanut butter egg, also a Hershey product. The peanut butter egg comes in
two sizes, each with a production run of 90 million, Kinney said.

According to a National Confectioners Association report, the chocolate /
candy industry will sell $837 million in seasonal items this year.

Kinney said the new product packaging of regular items is called "seasonal
dress." Hershey was the first to seasonally dress an item when in 1963
they put Hershey Kisses in green, red and yellow foil wrappers for the
Christmas holiday, he said.

Now Hershey puts pastel-colored foil on their Kisses for Easter, rather
than the simple silver covering of the rest of the year.

The chocolate industry is very seasonal, and during the summer, demand
drops slightly for two reasons: the weather and the lack of any large
holidays, Kinney said.

Chocolate is a heat-sensitive product, Kinney said, and during the summer
months, sales are a little bit slower.

Each year and season sees new products directed specifically at the
season, and this year is no different. New items this year from Hershey
include a hollow chocolate bunny filled with Kisses, and a
chocolate-covered peanut butter bunny, Kinney said.

He also mentioned a number of goofy facts about the Cadbury Creme Egg. For
example, if you were to stack all of the year's creme eggs one on top of
the other, it would yield a resulting tower of eggs 10 times higher than
Mount Everest. The yearly production run of creme eggs would produce a
colossal weight, approximately that of 1,500 African elephants.

So which is healthier - the egg or the Cadbury Creme Egg?

Tom Boileau, a graduate student in the nutritional sciences department,
said eating a hard-boiled egg would add 80 calories and six grams of fat
to your diet. As far as calories go, the real egg is better for you, and
the real egg narrowly wins out over the fat content of the candy egg.

Another product normally associated with Easter are "Peeps" made by Just
Born Inc. The marshmallow product, in pink and yellow, comes from
Pennsylvania, a state that seems to have a stronghold on the candy
industry.

But still remaining is Leaf Candies, a smaller company located in Lake
Forest, Ill., which produces a number of products aimed directly at the
Easter season.

Patty Forrest, marketing manager for seasonal products at Leaf , said,
"Easter is our biggest season, strangely enough."

Leaf produces special flavors of Jolly Ranchers, special shapes for other
products, and jelly bean gum for the Easter season. Forrest said Leaf's
number one and two sellers are Robin Eggs and Eggums. Robin Eggs are
candy-coated, speckled Whoppers, and Eggums are gumballs shaped like eggs
and packaged in tiny egg cartons.

Forrest said the idea to seasonally dress a product has "been around a
very long time." She said smaller companies like the Palmer Candy Company
and the Chocolate House began marketing specifically seasonal items before
Hershey and Mars. Forrest said Mars began M&M Holidays about 15 years
ago.

"(Leaf) had a very large seasonal business before these big guys came
about," Forrest added.

She also said, "It's amazing that putting a colored wrapper on a (Hershey)
Kiss makes someone who wouldn't ordinarily buy Kisses" purchase them
during the holidays.

Forrest said speed of manufacturing is virtually unchanged during the
holiday seasons, but production might add shifts on weekends to produce
more items.

The industry standard is approximately 30 percent in additional sales,
Forrest said.

A spokesperson from M&M / Mars declined comment on seasonal sales figures,
and would not comment on their special Easter items.