A Look Back At My Reviews In 2022

For the first time ever, I've decided to compile some statistics about all of the candy reviews that I posted in 2022. All together I managed to post 71 new reviews on candycritic.org. That's not bad considering my goal is to make sure that I post at least one new review a week. It's very good when one considers that there was an entire month when I could not post any new reviews due to technical problems.

I've already posted a video with a list of the highest rated and lowest rated candies I've reviewed this year, but below are some interesting bonus statistics about all the candy I discovered in 2022:

The brand I reviewed most: Hershey's with 8 reviews. It makes sense since we managed to visit the US twice this year, including one fairly long road trip.

Place I got my candy this year: More than half of the candies I reviewed were from North America. This is likely because I was back in Canada for most of the year, as well as the above mentioned visits to the US.

Most common type of candy I reviewed: Candy bars were the most common type of candy I reviewed this year with 19 candy bar reviews added.

I ate mostly Kit Kat bars this year: I reviewed 5 Kit Kat bars this year, a big part of that was the discovery of a new Asian grocery store in Ottawa that had a decent selection of Japanese Kit Kat bars.

I feel like it was a great year for candy, and with my recent relocation to South East Asia and the fact that travel is starting to open up again, I really feel like 2023 is going to be an interesting year for candy reviews on candycritic.org. Let me know if there are any treats you'd like to see featured for review, even if you're the company that makes them.

Always keep up with all my new reviews by following me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

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Candy Critic Statistics

So this past weekend we finally finished putting together the database for all of the candies reviewed on candycritic.org so far. It was way more reviews than we were expecting with well over twelve hundred. One thing that made me feel good about the reviews was the scoring. If you look at the graph above showing the number of candies that have any particular score, you'll see a fairly good curve. Each bar represents a score starting at 0 and going to 14.5 (there's a reason that there's no 15) in increments of  .5. The curve does lean slightly towards the better end, but that's because it's candy.  This  information will be used on the new site when we start listing the candies according to score.

This next graph shows all of the different candy brands that have more than 10 reviews on the site. The first bar is actually our question mark category, because we don't know the brands of some of the candies we've reviewed. We're hoping to lower that number down a lot and might be asking some of our readers to help with that.  This graph is very useful right now because we're presently building a section that will feature our most represented brands on the website. I took a guess at what these would be on my initial design, but I got a couple wrong.

This graph  features one of the new additions to the site that I'm most excited about. We're going to start listing some of the candies that have many different varieties. This includes Kit Kat, Lay's, and Pocky, to name a few. I love the idea of collecting varieties of candies, and I'm hoping this section grows in the  years to come.

While these are likely the dullest representations of candy that you can imagine, it's become a really valuable tool for us while updating candycritic.org. In the past the organization has been done slightly randomly, but with this database we're hoping that it will come together in a much more organized way.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with all of the work we're doing to update the site.

You can also follow us on Patreon and help us build this site by signing up.

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Brits Like Chocolate

According to the extremely obvious article below, British people really like chocolate.  Most apparently enjoy milk chocolate but the number of people that like chocolate in general is staggering.  According to the survey in the article, only 1 percent of people polled said that they didn't enjoy chocolate.  Now this makes sense to me, all one has to do is sample any British chocolate bar and you too will know why they love chocolate so much.

Click here to read the article.

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Continuous Innovation

According to some new research this is the best way to sell gum.  A study done recently says that most people buy gum on impulse and most want to try something new and different.  That means that there is very little brand loyalty in the gum world.  My opinion of brand loyalty is simple, I have virtually none.  There are certain brands that produce things I like, so I will often check them out, however I will change my mind on a whim.  Particularly with candy, I want new, I want good quality, and I want fun, I don't care who makes it.

Click here to read the statistics about gum.

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Some Valentines Statistics

These holidays really seem to stack up quickly.  The minute I finish celebrating Christmas I have to start thinking about Valentines Day, and in no time Easter.  If you're wondering what to get that special someone on Valentines Day you might want to read up on the holiday to help you out.  Your choice is to either go with the popular/traditional choice, or go out on a limb and try something creative, either way, good luck.

Click here to read some Valentines statistics.

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NCA Published Some Stats

The NCA has published some pretty amazing stats about how much the confection industry had spent in 2007 on supplies.  The total estimate is a whopping 4 billion dollars, with 680 million going to buying 2.3 billion pounds of sugar.  That's pretty impressive, I wonder what percentage of this sugar did I consume?

Click here to check out the stats.

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Happy Epiphany, Here's an Article About Valentines Day!

Seriously, we just finish with Christmas and I'm already starting to find articles about Valentines Day?  Now I love Valentines Day as much as the next guy, but a little break would be nice.  This article does look at what the expected trends will be for this year, so that's kind of neat.  In particular they examine the candy trends, so at least it's relevant to my interests.

Click here to check it out, or wait a few weeks and check it out when you get a break from the holidays.

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We Eat a Lot Of Ice Cream.. And We Always Have

If you follow the link bellow you'll see an impressive graphic from 1936 that informs the reader that at that time Americans where eating 180 million gallons of ice cream in a year.  That amount of ice cream would create a tub larger than the statue of liberty.

Click here to check out the info-graphic.

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Predicting the Future

Food Navigator has a great article about how some companies are finding ways to predict the future of snacking trends in the US.  I myself have a method of predicting the future of snacking trends, and I'm going to share it right now.  The first thing I do is attempt to sample every single snack available in the whole world.  I taste, and I taste until I have a pretty good idea of what tastes like crap and what tastes good.  Then I ask my friends what kind of candy they like.  I collect my data and simply ramble on about whatever is in my head at the time.  Sure it's not 100 percent accurate but neither is this scientific study either.

Click here to read more about the scientific method.

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You Changed Your Snacking Ways

According to a study people's snacking habits have changed a whole lot recently. Some eat healthier, some eat more, some eat at home, other not so much. Basically people are eating differently and I'm happy about that. If people are willing to change, then snacks should change to, it should usher in a new dawn of snack creativity.

Click here to read about the changes.

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People Recognize a Lot Of Candy

According to this article a massive survey has been done to rank the most recognizable brands in America. The top two spots where candy and snacks and candy had many mentions in the top 25.

Click here for more details.

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