8 Oct 2025
The spooky season has started. Halloween is a major celebration not just in the US, but also in Canada, Japan, Australia and many other countries worldwide. In Europe, the holiday is gaining momentum every year. And just as Halloween is inextricably linked to pumpkins, costumes and ghosts, it is also bound up with seasonal snacks and festive treats.
Our Taste Tomorrow global trend monitoring shows that over the past two years, there has been a 94% increase in online conversations about Halloween bakery, pastry, and chocolate creations compared to previous years, highlighting the growing demand for spooky sweets and creative confections.
Curious what creepy confectionery and spooky snacks are trending in 2025? Discover the treats sparking consumer attention on retail shelves:
Wednesday Addams inspired
This summer, the latest season of the spooky Netflix show Wednesday Addams was released - a huge pop culture moment that was accompanied with the launch of many themed food products. There were Wednesday mini pizzas in the freezer aisle, Wednesday Cheetos and breakfast cereal, and even a special meal combo at QSR-chain Wendy’s, promoted with the slogan “There’s nothing happy about this meal” – a playful jab at competitor McDonald's iconic Happy Meal.
Halloween presents the perfect opportunity for a second wave of Wednesday-themed treats. Even small scale bakeries can join with simple but exciting treats like hand-shaped cookies (a nod to Thing, the severed hand character), or cakes decorated with the iconic half sober, half colorful spiderweb motif stained glass window and from Wednesday's and Enid’s dorm room. With Halloween’s love for moody, dramatic visuals, black and electric purple bakes will perfectly capture both the spirit of the season and Wednesday’s iconic style.
Caramel apple flavor
A tart Granny Smith apple dipped in sweet, buttery caramel has been a favorite Halloween snack for ages. For many North American consumers, it's the epitome of a nostalgic fall treat. Our trend monitoring shows this flavor is poised for another spike in 2025, moving well beyond its classic form into pastries, donuts, and packaged snacks.
We’ve spotted pumpkin-shaped chocolates with an apple-caramel filling in supermarkets, while Disney theme parks have recently introduced an orange caramel apple cheesecake on their Halloween menu. In the last couple of weeks, foodie social media accounts have been flooding with apple-caramel cookies, cakes and muffin recipes.
Donuts are another popular application. Dottie’s Donuts in New York offers a particularly creative take on this trend with their cold brew-salted caramel glazed donut, with a cinnamon shake and a vanilla-glazed apple cinnamon turnover on top.
Smart takeaway: Caramel-apple treats offer a longer sales window, staying relevant beyond Halloween and throughout the colder months, as consumers continue to crave nostalgic, seasonal flavors in bakery, pastry, confectionery, and snack products.
Halloween cookie baking and decorating kits
Fall is the season for home baking, and for Halloween, consumers are eager to enjoy this cozy, interactive way of engaging with the holiday, preferably without all the hassle. The question is: how can bakery businesses best tap into that demand?
The answer is cookie baking and decorating kits, and according to our Taste Tomorrow data, they are booming. Industrial commercial bakery brands are rolling out refrigerated, pre-cut and ready-to-bake cookies with fun designs, such as the Pillsbury Halloween cookies in pumpkin, ghost and spooky cat shapes.
Artisanal bakeries and bakery chains are also creating their own Halloween cookie decorating kits, featuring pre-baked cookies in spooky shapes with icing and decorations, allowing users to customize their Halloween treats. These kits provide a creative activity for consumers and make an impressive homemade Instagram-worthy treat, without the stress of baking from scratch, perfectly tailored to today’s busy lifestyles and the desire to connect with loved ones in the kitchen during the holiday season.
Halloween countdown calendars
Almost 3 in 4 Americans celebrate Halloween, and popularity is still growing. And did you know that nearly 40% of Americans start their shopping in September or before fall starts? Meanwhile, 1 in five Brits state they prefer the Halloween celebration over Christmas. No wonder the market for Halloween treats is growing and the season itself is starting sooner and getting longer.
For food producers, this means a broader window of opportunity to capture consumer attention with seasonal launches, limited editions, and themed packaging. Instead of treating Halloween as a single-day occasion, brands can now build momentum weeks in advance and sustain sales well into the fall, giving them more chances to experiment with flavors, formats, and merchandising that keep consumers engaged throughout the extended season.
One of the most exciting twists in seasonal snacking is the rise of Halloween-themed advent and countdown calendars — a playful new way for consumers to kick off the spooky season ahead of October 31. William Sonoma has embraced the trend with a 13 day countdown calendar: a haunted house with a goodie behind each door. Halloween enthusiasts get ghoulish treats ranging from candy corn and sugar-cookies to sour gummies. Meanwhile, Ferrero North America takes it even further with its Halloween-themed advent calendar that consists of a month-long countdown. Packaged in a decorative box shaped like a storybook, there’s a treat from one of Ferrero's beloved brands, including Kinder Bueno and Nutella.
The hottest tea flavor applications in baked goods
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