News

How Walmart teamed up to drive a successful Halloween candy offering

Love the pecan pie M&M? You can thank the world's biggest retailer.

October 23, 2015

First came M&Ms boasting the flavor of candy corn to celebrate the annual Halloween trick or treat retail season.

Now comes M&Ms boasting pecan pie flavor, and apparently a Walmart associate buyer is a huge fan.

In a post published at Walmart’s business blog, Andre Crawford touts his hunger for the limited-time candy offering and notes that his decision to help create and stock Walmart with the exclusive offering was a good move.

Revealing he’s in charge of Halloween candy purchase for the world’s largest retailer Crawford says Walmart sells an enormous amount — if you laid the cases in a line it would stretch from Los Angeles to Chicago apparently.

"As part of the world’s largest retailer, that responsibility becomes a lot more fun than just flipping through catalogs and placing orders," he explained in the post, revealing Walmart worked with the candy maker to tweak the new M&M flavor.

"I got to work with the manufacturer to help tweak the formula and get it just right. When we had that nailed down, our attention turned to how to make the packaging fun and exciting,” he wrote, noting his job is "like being a real-life Willy Wonka."

The pecan flavor M&M is an example of how Walmart works with its partners to develop exclusive offerings.

“Because of the close relationship we have with our suppliers, we have opportunities to create new products and develop exclusive new twists on classics, like M&Ms. By coming up with this exclusive product, the supplier and Walmart were both putting millions of dollars at risk, because there was no guarantee it was going to work,” he said.

And in a bit of irony it turns out Halloween also happens to be Crawford’s birthday.

“So, I guess you could say Halloween and I have always been together. The weather, the season, the holiday and, of course, the candy – I love this time of year. It just so happens I’m fortunate enough to have my professional life revolve around it, too,”