Meet the VP who works year-round to make one of the country's most controversial Halloween candies

• Matt Escalante is nan caller VP of Brach's seasonal division, champion known for its candy corn.
• The institution knows its apical dainty is arguable — but it dominates a astir $90 cardinal market.
• Escalante says nan dainty is present to stay, for illustration it aliases not.

If you've eaten candy corn sometime successful nan past century, there's a bully chance it came from Brach's.

The confection elephantine is champion known for cornering nan candy maize market, churning retired 28 cardinal pounds of nan candle-like candy each twelvemonth and raking successful $75 cardinal of an $88.5 cardinal candy maize marketplace successful 2022, according to information from nan user investigation patient Circana.

That equates to much than 2 cardinal candy maize kernels, Business Insider antecedently reported, aliases capable to circle nan satellite astir 13 times, nan institution says.

And while nan candy maize marketplace stays booming, nan merchandise itself — pinch its waxy texture, neon coloring, and saccharine aftertaste — is notoriously polarizing.

Best and worst lists regularly characteristic nan worldly — and Brach's has, successful anterior years, leaned into nan statement pinch constricted version runs of seemingly made-for-social-media flavors for illustration nan viral 2021 Thanksgiving meal variety featuring roasted turkey and stuffing flavored candies panned by 1 reviewer arsenic "repellent."

Enter Matt Escalante, nan caller vice president for Brach's seasonal division, wherever Halloween is nan candy Super Bowl. Hired successful July aft years moving successful nan alcoholic beverage industry, Escalante is now successful complaint of being nan go-to hype-man for nan arguable candy corn.

Escalante stands by nan dainty — which, for nan record, he does like, and prefers to eat one-by-one, alternatively than by nan handful. But that doesn't mean he and nan institution aren't looking to find a caller classical that much group really want to eat, not conscionable rant astir connected Twitter.

This year, nan brand's caller fall-themed "Autumn Leaves" candy featured 5 nontraditional flavors: caramel apple, pumpkin spice, saccharine maple, salted butterscotch, and spiced cider.

"We're ever looking for caller spirit combinations, trying caller on-trend things," Escalante said. "Those are nan ones we've sewage this year, but we're reasoning astir caller ones for adjacent twelvemonth and nan twelvemonth after."

Brach's is simply a branch of Ferrara Candy Company, a apical subordinate successful non-chocolate candies, including brands for illustration Jelly Belly, Trolli, Laffy Taffy, and Nerds — which The Wall Street Journal reported created nan astir caller manufacture juggernaut pinch its debut of Nerds Gummy Clusters successful 2020, generating much than $500 cardinal this twelvemonth alone.

Brach's hasn't yet created its ain type of nan gummy cluster, but opportunity successful nan non-chocolate assemblage is growing, pinch user income ballooning much than 48% from $7.5 cardinal successful 2020 to astir $12.5 cardinal truthful acold this year, per Circana data.