🎃 Halloween Candy Report 2026

70.6% of the candies we scanned contain ingredients banned or restricted overseas.

51 popular candies, scanned with the free BannedPantry scanner and checked against EU, UK, Canada, Japan, and California regulatory lists. Every flag cites its regulator. No brand sponsorships — ever.

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The candy bowl, by verdict

Avoid

Caution

Safe

The additives showing up most

Share of the 51 scanned candies containing each flagged ingredient.

Red 40

56.9%

Yellow 5

47.1%

Yellow 6

33.3%

Acacia Gum

9.8%

Titanium Dioxide

9.8%

Carmine

7.8%

The most-flagged candies we scanned

Tap any candy for its full verdict with regulator citations.

Gummy Clusters

AVOID · 5 flagged ingredients

Skittles

AVOID · 4 flagged ingredients

Peanut M&m's Chocolate Candies

AVOID · 4 flagged ingredients

Sour Brite Crawlers

AVOID · 4 flagged ingredients

Nerds gummy clusters peg bag

AVOID · 4 flagged ingredients

Nerds Gummy Clusters

AVOID · 4 flagged ingredients

Nerds Candy - Rainbow

AVOID · 4 flagged ingredients

Scanned clean: candies with zero flags

These scanned with no banned-or-restricted ingredients. Formulas change — always check the label.

Marshmallow Cotton Candy

SAFE · 0 flags

Shop on Amazon^(affiliate)

Organic Gummy Bears

SAFE · 0 flags

Shop on Amazon^(affiliate)

Jet-Puffed Marshmallows

SAFE · 0 flags

Shop on Amazon^(affiliate)

Ultimate 8 flavor gummi bears

SAFE · 0 flags

Shop on Amazon^(affiliate)

Methodology & citation

Sample: 51 candy products scanned by BannedPantry users (a convenience sample of what real shoppers scan, not a random sample of all candy). Ingredients are matched against additives banned, restricted, or warning-labeled by the EU, UK, Canada, Japan, or California (Prop 65 / OEHHA); every flag on a product page links to its primary regulatory source. Verdicts recompute daily as more candy is scanned.

Journalists & creators: these numbers are free to cite with attribution to BannedPantry (CC-BY-4.0). Press inquiries: [email protected]. Deeper cuts of the data available on request. See also the full BannedPantry Grocery Study.

Educational use only — not medical advice. Our scores are never influenced by brands; clean-candy links may earn an affiliate commission, which never affects scoring.