Mom goes through her son’s Halloween haul, and one find makes her say, ‘How horrible our current economy is’

The economy might be dead, but that doesn’t mean Halloween has to be, too. But trick-or-treaters should perhaps temper their expectations this year, as one mother found out.

If you’re looking for cheap sweet treats to hand out this Halloween, then TikToker Danielle Martin might have the answer. The mother claimed that she was going through her son’s Halloween haul when she discovered something that left her scratching her head: a single gummy bear wrapped in plastic.

Gummy bears typically come in packs containing multiple, at the very least, a handful of the sweet, chewy candies. But apparently, you can now buy a single gummy bear complete with its own wrapping, as Danielle discovered. The mother called it “a true sign of how horrible our economy is.”

The individually-wrapped gummy bear certainly seems like a bizarre choice to hand out as a Halloween sweet, particularly because it’s such a small candy; it hardly seems worth it. Danielle’s discovery has sparked a conversation surrounding “shrinkflation,” which is when a product is downsized while the price is typically kept the same. 

According to gao.gov, products that have been affected by shrinkflation in the US include items such as paper towels, which have shrunk in size by 12%, and coffee, which has reportedly shrunk by 32%.

Shrinkflation effects on candies

It seems as if candy products have been unable to avoid shrinkflation either. A report from Lendtree found that, in 2024, out of 13 candy items, five (38.5%) were found to have shrunk in size since 2019. 

People have begun noticing too; in an email to BroBible, Danielle claimed that she had noticed a rise in individually wrapped candies appearing in shops. “I am noticing more (however, still infrequent) individually wrapped candies — a single stick of gum, a single Swedish fish, a single gummy worm, etc,” she said.

Others in the TikTok comments section also claimed they had similarly been handed singular items. One commenter claimed they were given “a single gummy bear, a single wrapped Swedish fish and a single wrapped Sourpatch Kid.”

It’s unclear where the individually wrapped gummy bear came from too, as a search for the product on Amazon, Walmart, and other online stores only brought up the multipacks.

Regardless, Danielle said that she didn’t find any more solitary sweets in her son’s haul. She also claimed that her son “was thrilled to find the individually wrapped gummy bear.”

Some viewers speculated that the bear may have been a THC gummy, something the mother says “was not ever a thought in my mind.” Danielle also added that “I was by no means bashing the individual handing out these candies, just merely commenting on its singleness.”