You could say things were sweet yesterday at McCormick Place in Chicago as the Centre opened its doors to the 450 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors of the 2006 All Candy Expo.

In a massive exhibition centre decorated with enough big-eyed cartoon animals and pastel colours to gag even a Japanese teenage girl, the folks from Skittles, Snickers,Malt-O Balls and hundreds of others of their ilk strutted their stuff to buyers and shared the latest industry information. One attendee posted the scariest photos (with her jelly candy camera) and posted them on the internet.

And what was the red hot tamale subject that had everyone flapping their wrappers this year? No surprise here. The message was - High cocoa content! Gotta get more high cocoa content!!

Much hyper active excitement has been generated throughout the industry since someone finally found a reason why, other than in a purely psychological sense, candy can be good for you. In fact, the science world’s recent announcement that high cocoa content dark chocolate has certain health benefits had the sugar pushers at the Expo blowing their toot sweets trying to figure out how they could inject more of the stuff into their jujubes, candycanes, and licorice all-sorts.

One might say the prospect made everybody as happy as kids in a very large candy store. However, looking at the new items line-up there was little to indicate that candy manufacturers had anyone’s health in mind. Most of it were items with the potential to make your kids, and your family dentist, dementedly happy, if not yourself …. unless, of course, the Roll-on Sour Liquid candy gives you some sticky ideas…

Here were some of the items in the new product showcase. If the Devil was not in the details here, you would have to wonder what was:

- Crunchy Gummies (gummi bears bred with pop rocks)
- Sour Chew drinking straws (the better to suck up that Pepsi)
- Betty Boop candy lipgloss
- Bada Beans (pellets you drop in your morning coffee to give it that nuance of caramel fudge)
- sheets of bubble wrap made from chocolate
- Crayola licensed jelly beans
- lollypops printed with company marketing messages
- edible writing pads with foodcolour ink pens
- hard candy action figures with articulating joints
- Super Sippin Sucker – a lollypop that attaches to the tops of bottles so that kids can suck candy and sip softdrinks at the same time.
- light up candy rings and necklaces
- squeezable, squawking, candy filled rubber chickens
- Gummi Candy chicken legs on a plastic bone
- squeezed cotton candy in tubes
- candy tongue tattoos

And for the rebellious offspring of sincere, eco-conscious parents everywhere….

Toxic Waste Nuclear Sludge Chew Bar