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The most favorable time for chocolate business is the Halloween holidays. A recent survey from Confectioners Association found that 72% of all candy spending this Halloween will be on chocolate. Last year more than $12 billion was spent on chocolates alone in the USA.

Market research firm information Resources did an extensive study of the chocolate buying patterns in USA for 52 months. They found that the citizens in U.S. spent $3.9 billion to buy 3.5 billion chocolate bars, bags and boxes under 3.5 ounces. The same measure is the standard size consumers pick up at a grocery store checkout reported USA Today.

Another stark fact is that the entire chocolate industry is concentrated among only few competitors. Majority of the 10 best-selling chocolate brand is owned by either Hershey or Mars. In 2012, Hershey made close to nearly 50% of all standard-sized chocolate sales in dollars where as Mars sales were close to 40%.

Nestle’s Butterfinger and Crunch are the only two of the 20 most popular products that are being made by another company.

The top-selling chocolate brand Hershey is also among one of the oldest incepted in 1900. Two of the brands are relatively new and those were introduced in the U.S. after 1950. The most recent brand which is also among top-selling is Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme, which was introduced in 1994.

Experts believe that most of the big candy manufacturers cut corners simply by pulling tricks such as filling their products with dyes, chemicals, or high-fructose sugars. However there are few companies too that have successfully cut the junk and preferring those will be a healthy affair.