Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Candy and Nut Store Revenue Benchmark

A candy and nut store sells confectionery, chocolates, nuts and sweets, from bulk bins to gift boxes, and often adds fudge, popcorn or ice cream made on site. Tourist traffic, holidays and gift seasons drive a small-ticket trade in which location and presentation matter more than almost anything else.

NAICS 445292, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Candy Store Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every confectionery and nut retailer with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of stores gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$817,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

3,380

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $2.8 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $2.8 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 3,380 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $817,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Confectionery and Nut Retailers, NAICS 445292. The category covers retailers of candy, confections and nuts. Chocolate makers are counted in manufacturing and grocery stores in their own category. Classified separately in group 4452: 445230 Fruit and Vegetable Retailers; 445240 Meat Retailers; 445250 Fish and Seafood Retailers, and 2 further codes. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group

Specialty Food Retailers, NAICS 4452, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

50.7%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 80.0 percent at 1 year, 67.5 percent at 2 years, 61.3 percent at 3 years, 55.5 percent at 4 years, 50.7 percent at 5 years. 1,873 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 45.8 to 52.5 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 80.0 percent of the starting count2 years: 67.5 percent of the starting count3 years: 61.3 percent of the starting count4 years: 55.5 percent of the starting count5 years: 50.7 percent of the starting count80.067.561.355.550.7Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years1,873 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 51 establishments aged five for every 100 that first reported paid employment in 2018. Census compares counts by age rather than following the same businesses, so read it as a broad continuation indicator for the industry group, not as a tracked survival rate.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 45.8 to 52.5 percent. This benchmark covers Specialty Food Retailers, NAICS 4452, as a whole, and this category accounts for 3,380 of the 23,982 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

MeasureValue
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈16%

Payroll share of receipts, Confectionery and Nut Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 16.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because the sweets on the shelf are the main cost and a small counter team can run a store, though staffing swells around holidays.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and the census does not publish cost of goods, so nothing on this page shows what a store keeps after paying its suppliers.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

MeasureValue
Paid employees per employer establishment5.8
Employer establishments per firm1.61

Scale and ownership, Confectionery and Nut Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 5.8 people, and the industry averaged 1.6 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could be a few counter staff, more of them in the holiday weeks.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Candy and Nut Store: what holidays, tourists and gift seasons do to a small-ticket average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • How much of the year is holidays? Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and the winter holidays can account for a large part of annual sales, and a store must stock and staff for peaks that last days. An annual average hides how uneven the calendar is.
  • Where does the store sit? Candy stores in tourist districts, malls and resort towns live on foot traffic, and their revenue rises and falls with visitors rather than with local demand. Location and lease terms shape the result more than the product does.
  • Does the store make anything? Fudge, chocolate dipping or popcorn made on site raise margins and draw customers in with the smell, but they add labor, equipment and food safety obligations. The share of house-made products behind a store's revenue varies widely.
  • Franchise or independent? Franchised candy and popcorn chains bring branding and supply contracts in exchange for fees, while independents keep their revenue and source their own lines. Both appear here, and franchise fees change the arithmetic for an operator.
  • What does spoilage and melting cost? Chocolate melts, nuts go stale and seasonal packaging expires, so a store carries shrink that a dry goods retailer does not. Waste is a normal cost of the trade and appears nowhere in receipts.
  • How does online and corporate gifting fit? Gift boxes shipped nationally and corporate holiday orders can add revenue beyond the counter, with shipping and packaging costs attached. The census counts those receipts alongside walk-in sales.

Sources and Methodology

Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.

The Census counts employer establishments, meaning each store with paid staff. Chocolate makers are counted in manufacturing, and a candy maker selling alone at markets is not counted here.