I Ranked Halloween Candy Variety Packs At Canadian Grocery Stores & There's A Clear Winner

Kirkland Signature funhouse treats, assorted candies

Available at: Costco

Price: $24.99 for 175 pieces

Includes: Chupa Chups lollipops, Airheads, Skittles, Dare Realfruit gummies, Dare Realfruit Sours, Jolly Rancher Lollipops, Sour Bud Bites, Rockets

This is Kirkland Signature chaos in a bag. Sure, it's a boatload of raw candy to hand out on Halloween, but there's no candy theme here at all. In fact, many of these candies will form the base layer of your Halloween leftovers for months to come, what with the random gummies, lollipops and chalky Rockets in the mix.

There's probably something in this bag for everyone, but there are also plenty of filler candies that you'll be stuck with well beyond November 1.

Hershey's snack size candy

Available at: No Frills and other grocery stores

Price: $11.99 for 50 pieces

Includes: Twizzlers Pull-N-Peel Strawberry Blast liquorice, Twizzlers Pull-N-Peel liquorice, Jolly Ranchers Misfits gummies

Hard pass on this one.

I don't mind a good piece of cherry-flavoured Twizzler but I'll never reach for it first, and the Strawberry Blast option is even less appealing. I also don't dig random Jolly Rancher gummies.

If you buy this pack, these candies will be at the bottom of the bag for just about any kid who visits your house, except that one oddball who loves liquorice.

Nestle mini Halloween chocolate & candy bars

Available at: Walmart

Price: $8.97

Includes: KitKat, Crunch, Mackintosh's

I often forget that Crunch exists and Mackintosh's are one of those throw-in candies that you'll just throw out in a few weeks, if they don't chip your tooth first. KitKat is the only thing saving this combo, and these KitKats get extra points because they look like little monsters.

Kids will love the KitKats, but the other options here just aren't grabbing me.

Maynards assorted gummy pack

Available at: Walmart and other grocery stores

Price: $12.97 for 90 pieces

Includes: Sour Patch, Swedish Fish, Fuzzy Peach, Swedish Berries

Sorry, but I don't like any gummies with "Swedish" in the name. They're just too tough and flavourless for me.

Fuzzy Peach is decent and I love Sour Patch, but I'll be ignoring half of the options in this pack if I buy it.

Skip.

Cadbury assorted chocolate candy bars

Available at: No Frills and other grocery stores

Price: $18.99 for 90 pieces

Includes: Caramilk, Mr. Big, Crispy Crunch, Wunderbar

Much like the Maynards pack above, this Cadbury lineup is about as deep as a puddle on a dry day. Caramilk is top-tier stuff but Mr. Big is meh, Wunderbar is a last resort and I can't stand the mouth feel of Crispy Crunch. I simply won't eat it, which makes this a weak spread of candy bars.

Hershey's assorted chocolate and candy value pack

Available at: Walmart

Price: $16.97 per 125 pieces

Includes: Whoppers, Reese's Pieces, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Oh Henry!, Jolly Rancher fruit lollipops

I almost put this one right at the top of the list because Reese's and Whoppers are fantastic. However, let's not forget the criteria here: we're looking for variety packs where you want to eat everything in the box.

And I'm sorry Jolly Rancher, but you need to figure out what it is you do around here. Are you a gummy, as seen earlier? Are you a hard candy, as we've seen in the past? Or are you a lollipop? Because if you're a lollipop, you're getting left behind when I go sifting through my haul for a treat.

This is a good variety pack, but the throw-in Jolly Ranchers keep it from being great.

Mars assorted fruity Halloween candy

Available at: Costco

Price: $22.99 for 155 pieces

Includes: Original Skittles, Original Starburst, Starburst Face-Red, Lifesavers Big Ring Gummies

One of these things is not like the other.

I love Skittles and Starburst, but the Lifesavers gummies hold this combo back as the one skippable option. Every band has that one member you forget about, and in this case it's Lifesavers.

Mars fruity Halloween candy

Available at: No Frills and other grocery stores

Price: $14.99 for 70 pieces

Includes: Original Skittles, Original Starburst, Starburst Fave-Red

OK, now that we've kicked Lifesavers out of the party, let's have some fun!

If you dig chewy fruit candies like I do, this pack is a can't-miss choice. I'll eat Skittles and Starburst by the handful, so there's not a candy in this pack that will go to waste for me, even if the Starburst Fave-Red offers up the occasional weird option.

The only thing that keeps this pack from being elite is the lack of a Sour Skittles option, which feels a bit odd since you're getting two versions of Starburst.

Nestle mini assorted chocolate bars

Available at: No Frills and other grocery stores

Price: $21.99 for 100 pieces

Includes: Coffee Crisp, KitKat, Aero, Smarties

Nestle's chocolate bar lineup is absolutely solid, if not spectacular. Coffee Crisp is the first chocolate I'd be digging out of this box, but KitKat and Smarties are also good and Aero's pretty decent, too.

If you're looking for a tried-and-true range of chocolate bars, this is a great bet.

Mars variety Halloween chocolate candy bars

Available at: Walmart and other grocery stores

Price: $9.97 for 50 pieces

Includes: M&M's, Peanut M&M's, Mars, Snickers, Twix

This Mars variety pack is like the Avengers of candy bars. You get classic and peanut M&M's, the cookie crunch of a Twix, the delicious Mars bar and it's close cousin, Snickers. Mars and Snickers are often the first bars I'll eat from a candy bag, and with this pack you get them both.

You can't go wrong with this box.

Hershey's snack-size chocolate bars

Available at: Loblaws and other grocery stores

Price: $12.99 for 50 pieces

Includes: Whoppers, Reese's Pieces, Oh Henry!, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's Cookies 'N' Creme

We have our silver medallist!

This Hershey's pack is truly stellar, and while there's a definite pecking order in terms of the different chocolates, none of them are throwaways.

The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is a 10/10 winner in any trick-or-treat haul, and you get much of the same flavour with the Reese's Pieces as well. I'm a big fan of the malty taste of Whoppers, so those are also a huge win for this pack.

I'd argue the lesser options here are Oh Henry! and the Hershey's Cookies 'N' Creme, although the latter bar comes in a Halloween version now where you can break it apart into vampire fangs. That alone boosts the score.

And while I'll never reach for Oh Henry! first, I'll still eat them all within a week.

Kirkland Signature Treatsize Favourites

Available at: Costco

Price: $29.99 for 150 pieces

Includes: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Oh Henry!, M&M's, Peanut M&M's, Snickers, Twix

We started with Kirkland and we're ending with Kirkland, because this is a Halloween candy variety pack for the ages.

Costco has assembled some of the best chocolates from two other variety packs here, with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups joining Twix, M&M's and Snickers all in one combo.

This is basically the best of the previous two entries. I'd have kept Mars and Whoppers over Oh Henry!, but all of these options are either good or great.

This is hands-down the best Halloween candy variety pack you can get in Canada in 2023.