My All-Time Favorite Candy Comes From the Hardware Store

The first snow has fallen. The wreaths, inflatable yard decorations, and lights are up. Holiday greetings are in the air. It can mean only one thing: We’re in peak Candy Season.

Candy Season actually starts in the weeks leading up to Halloween and extends through Valentine’s Day (and depending on when Easter falls, possibly even longer). This is the time when we make sure our buckets, baskets, stockings, and candy dishes are well stocked with sweets of all sorts. But as any sweet-toothed adult knows, there are two types of candy: The bulk stuff from the supermarket bargain aisle that we put out for guests, relatives, and riff-raff, and the separate private stash we keep for ourselves.

And for the latter, I’d suggest you start shopping exclusively at Menards.

That’s right, the Midwestern big-box home improvement emporium is a one-stop depot for fixing a faulty faucet or ding in the drywall and getting your sugar fix. And when the store says “Save Big Money” they don’t just mean on remodeling your kitchen or buying a new fridge. The retail chain’s stock of QP Candy Co. treats is affordable and surprisingly delicious.

Why I Love QP Candy Co.

We shouldn’t be shocked that Menards has an extensive candy selection. After all, in the 1800s and early 1900s, the small town general store was a place to buy tools and hard candy, taffy, and chocolates from wooden barrels by the pound. My grandpa always talked about going to the local co-op (essentially a hardware and supply store for farmers) to buy penny candy, like a twist of licorice or, later, a Tootsie Roll, from a big glass jar on the counter.

In addition, Menards has been in the grocery game since 2007, offering everything from frozen pizza to sparkling water, chips, and even instant mashed potatoes.

We’re not sure when they started carrying the confections of the Minnesota-based QP Candy Co., a brand of the family-owned LMH Quality Products, but we’re so glad they did. The company offers an assortment of classic candies, including chocolates (chocolate caramel peanut clusters and chocolate raisins), gummies (sour worms, gummi bears, and peach rings), licorice, jelly beans, French burnt peanuts, and old-school wrapped candies like Bit-O-Honeys and Tootsie Pops.

The size of the teal-colored bag varies depending on the type of candy, but the price is the same across the board: $2.49 per bag.

QP Candy Co. Strawberry Rings

We love a good peach ring. No candy quite captures the soft sweetness of that fuzzy fruit like the gummy rings that hail from Germany. But when it comes to QP Candy Co., we prefer another rarer variety of the circular gummy: Strawberry Rings.

QP’s take on the Strawberry Ring is juicy, super sweet, and above all chewy, stretching the intense flavor experience longer before you dig back into the bag. And at barely $2.50 a bag, you don’t have to ration too carefully.

In fact, at that bargain price, it almost makes sense to buy enough to share. But why? That’s what the leftover Halloween candy is for.