🎶 Trick or treat, smell my feet … give us something #CHA to eat. 🎶 👻

If you are fortunate enough to live on a street frequented by trick-or-treaters on Halloween, you know how important candy selection can be … not only for your reputation (candy street-cred is a real thing) but also because you’ve only got one chance to make it memorable? Why not go all out?

Here’s the thing: A bunch of sweet treats are made right here in the Chattanooga area. Instead of giving out those cheap (and disgusting) orange/black garbage candies, why not stock your pumpkin offering bowl with the best of Chattanooga-made products this year? You’ll be “buying local” and giving the kids what they really want: name-brand treats with some substance.

From Moonpies to Altoids (it’s true, the “curiously strong mint” is made here), there are candies/treats for even the pickiest of children + sugar-hungry adults dressed up like children (We see you, Dave).

If you take only one thing away from this list, let it be this: Any Little Debbie product will always beat candy corn. 🎃

What are you giving out to the tiny ghosts and adorable goblins this year? Let us know on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or email us at hello@noogatoday.com.

Life Savers Gummies. (Photo: NOOGAtoday)

Life Savers Gummi Savers

How many times have you sat straight up in bed during the early morning hours with the thought, “Lifesavers would be better as a gummy product”? Me too, guys. Fortunately for us, Gummi Lifesavers have been around since 1992 and that means a couple of things: 1.) we don’t have to dream about them because they already exist, and 2.) we probably need a psychiatric evaluation re: those dreams. If you are choosing between traditional Life Savers and Gummi Savers for the purpose of trick-or-treating, it’s always a good rule to choose the product that’s less likely for a small child to choke on. Start there and work backward.

McKee Foods makes the popular Little Debbie treats. (Photo: NOOGAtoday)

Nutty Buddy/Swiss Rolls

For more than 70 years, Collegedale and Chattanooga have been home to McKee Foods. They’re the company behind the iconic Little Debbie brand (and others like Fieldstone, Sunbelt and Drake’s). If you’re dead set on not giving candy, Little Debbie products are a great option, especially if you don’t want your house to get rolled with toilet paper. Our picks? Any of the fall seasonal cakes/cookies would be appropriate, but as far as flagship products go, the Nutty Buddy and Swiss Rolls are super tasty and hard to beat. Don’t you dare put a mini-muffin or powdered donut in a child’s plastic pumpkin though, you monster. 👹

MoonPie Minis

Chattanooga Bakery invented the iconic Moonpie (shaped like a moon + packed with calories and easy for coal miners to stick in a lunchbox). The original MoonPie is delicious, but perhaps the Mini MoonPie (invented in 1998) is a better option for trick-or-treating. Look, none of us are coal miners anymore. We don’t require the caloric satiety of the original Moonpie while we’re digging coal for 18 hours. It’s just not our thing anymore. A little taste is plenty of Moonpie … and that’s exactly what the Mini MoonPie provides.

Did you know that Altoids are made here? (Photo: NOOGAtoday)

Altoids

Nooga is home to the “curiously strong mint,” which is surprising to most. Altoids are produced at Mars Wrigley Confectionary on Jersey Pike. Originally, the mints were marketed as a remedy for stomach discomfort when they were introduced in 1780 in Wales. They became popular in Europe and were brought to America in 1918. The metal tin (who doesn’t love that?) was a part of the iconic brand by the early 1920s. It wasn’t until 1998 (almost 60 years later) that the popular Wintergreen flavor was added. Is this a good Halloween trick-or-treating item? Probably not. But it’s made here and that one weird kid will love it and talk about it incessantly.

Twix/M&M’s

On certain days, when the wind is just so, the locals say you can smell the delicious melting chocolate wafting from the Mars plant in Cleveland, Tennessee. The location is responsible for about half of all M&M’s produced in the country and 100% of the Twix bars. All of them. Cleveland’s candy game is strong. If this were a fantasy football situation, having both Twix and M&M’s on your roster would make your team hard to beat. And what kid would turn up their nose to a Twix or M&M? No kid of mine, I tell you. (I don’t have kids).