How many calories are in salt water taffy?
Four pieces of salt water taffy weigh 28 g and carry 111 calories. Per 100 g the candy runs 397 calories, nearly all of it sugar. A single wrapped piece is 28 calories, which sounds harmless right up until the boardwalk bag is open on the passenger seat and seven of them are gone.
You'd need to walk about 22 minutes to burn the 111 calories in a 4-piece (28 g) serving.
How long does it take to burn off 111 kcal of salt water taffy?
A 4-piece (28 g) serving is 111 kcal. Enter your weight and the amount you ate to see how long it takes you to burn that off:
lb
| Activity | Time to burn 111 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 22 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 14 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 16 min |
| Jogging | 13 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 25 min |
Times are for a 155 lb adult at a steady pace; change the weight to see yours. The amount is set to the portion in the text (28 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Salt water taffy quick facts
- US servings, from one piece to a paper bag
- Homemade, store-bought, peppermint and sugar-free
- The salt in salt water taffy is mostly a story
- How does salt water taffy compare?
- Most popular salt water taffy brands
- FAQ
Salt water taffy quick facts
There is no USDA generic record called "salt water taffy." The closest full match is SR Legacy 169670, "Candies, taffy, prepared-from-recipe", and it describes the candy in your hand well: 397 calories per 100 g against the 393 printed on real US taffy bags, and 111 calories for four pieces against the 110 those bags list. The pulled-sugar recipe behind the USDA row is the same one the boardwalk shops use, butter and all.
A second USDA record, FNDDS 2710369, "Candy, taffy", sits at 390 calories per 100 g. The gap is the recipe behind it, not a different candy or a better source: that survey code assumes less corn syrup and more table sugar, which is why its sugar figure is higher and its sodium nearly disappears. Everything below uses record 169670 unless a row says otherwise.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 4 pieces (28 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 397 | 111 | — |
| Total fat | 3.33 g | 0.9 g | 1% |
| Saturated fat | 2.05 g | 0.6 g | 3% |
| Carbohydrate | 91.56 g | 25.6 g | 9% |
| Dietary fiber | 0 g | 0 g | 0% |
| Total sugars | 68.48 g | 19.2 g | — |
| Protein | 0.03 g | 0.0 g | 0% |
| Sodium | 52 mg | 15 mg | 1% |
% Daily Value is based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from USDA FoodData Central, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food composition database, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified September 2026. How we verify our data →
There is no added-sugars row in that table because USDA does not publish added sugars for this record. It is worth saying plainly anyway: taffy is sugar, corn syrup and butter pulled together, so the 68.48 g of total sugars per 100 g is not arriving from fruit. The FDA Daily Value for added sugars is 50 g a day, and the Dietary Guidelines put the ceiling at under 10% of daily calories.
Two smaller rows: cholesterol is 9 mg per 100 g, or 3 mg in a four-piece serving, 1% of the Daily Value, and it is there because of the butter. Potassium is 3 mg per 100 g, which rounds to 1 mg per serving and is effectively nothing.
US servings, from one piece to a paper bag
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 piece, wrapped | 7 g | 28 kcal |
| 4 pieces, the label serving | 28 g | 111 kcal |
| 1 oz | 28.35 g | 113 kcal |
| 7 pieces, a small paper bag | 42 g | 167 kcal |
| 1 piece, homemade pulled | 15 g | 60 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 397 kcal |
Only two of those weights come straight from a source. The 15 g homemade piece is the USDA household portion for record 169670, and the 28 g four-piece serving is the one printed on retail bags. The rest is our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure: the 7 g single piece is 28 g divided by four, one ounce is 28.35 g scaled up, and seven pieces is that 7 g piece multiplied out.
That single-piece weight is where taffy hides. A wrapped candy is small, light and gone in twenty seconds, so nobody counts it as a serving. But the arithmetic is unforgiving in the other direction: one piece is 28 calories, four are 111, and seven — a modest scoop from a candy shop bin — is 167. Nothing about any individual piece changes; only the count does. If you log taffy at all, log the number of wrappers, not a vague handful.
Homemade taffy is a different problem. A hand-pulled piece off a marble slab tends to run around 15 g, roughly double a wrapped one, so 60 calories each. Three of those is more than the whole four-piece bag serving.
Homemade, store-bought, peppermint and sugar-free
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homemade pulled taffy | 397 kcal | 1 piece (15 g) | 60 kcal |
| Store-bought taffy, survey record | 390 kcal | 1 stick (15 g) | 59 kcal |
| Peppermint salt water taffy | 393 kcal | 4 pieces (28 g) | 110 kcal |
| Banana taffy | 381 kcal | 7 pieces (42 g) | 160 kcal |
| Sugar-free assorted taffy | 286 kcal | 4 pieces (28 g) | 80 kcal |
| Bulk bin salt water taffy | 368 kcal | 2 oz (57 g) | 210 kcal |
Flavor barely moves the number. Peppermint at 393 calories per 100 g and banana at 381 are the same candy with different extracts and dyes; the 12-calorie gap per 100 g between them is not worth thinking about. The store brands sit in the same narrow band — Taffy Town at 393 calories per 100 g and 110 for four pieces, Russell Stover and CVS Gold Emblem at 381 with 160 per seven pieces, Forbes Candies at 375 with 150 per 40 g.
Sugar-free assorted taffy is the one genuine outlier at 286 calories per 100 g, or 80 calories for four pieces instead of 111. That drop is real, and it comes from sugar alcohols standing in for sucrose. They are counted differently on the label and, in quantity, they are famously hard on some people's digestion — a bag-sized portion of sugar-free candy is not the same experiment as a bag-sized portion of the regular kind.
Bulk bin taffy is the sneaky one. At 368 calories per 100 g it is the lightest full-sugar version here, but it is sold by weight, and the scoop that fills a small bag is easily 2 oz — 57 g and 210 calories, roughly double the printed bag serving.
The salt in salt water taffy is mostly a story
Four pieces carry 15 mg of sodium, 1% of the Daily Value. Per 100 g the figure is 52 mg. For scale, the CDC notes that most Americans take in far more than the 2,300 mg daily limit, and taffy contributes essentially none of it. The name traces back to Atlantic City boardwalk lore about candy soaked by a storm tide, not to a recipe. If you are watching sodium, this candy is not your problem — though store labels do vary widely, from 89 to 607 mg per 100 g depending on how much salted butter goes in.
The row that actually earns a look is saturated fat. Total fat is only 3.33 g per 100 g, which reads as trivial. But 2.05 g of that 3.33 g is saturated — 62% of the fat in the candy — because the fat is butter. A four-piece serving lands at 0.6 g, 3% of the Daily Value. Small on its own, and still more than you get from a hard candy, which carries 0.2 g of total fat per 100 g and no saturated fat at all.
The other thing worth knowing: there is zero fiber and 0.03 g of protein per 100 g. Every one of those 91.56 g of carbohydrate per 100 g is available carbohydrate, and there is nothing in the candy to slow it down or to leave you full. Taffy is a flavor and a texture, priced in calories. Treat it that way and it is fine; treat it as a snack and it will not hold you for an hour.
How does salt water taffy compare?
| Candy | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salt water taffy | 397 kcal | 1 oz (28.35 g) | 113 kcal |
| Gumdrops, starch jelly pieces | 396 kcal | 1 oz (28.35 g) | 112 kcal |
| Hard candy | 394 kcal | 1 oz (28.35 g) | 112 kcal |
| Nougat with almonds | 398 kcal | 1 oz (28.35 g) | 113 kcal |
Our take: swapping one sugar candy for another is a waste of effort. All four land within 4 calories of each other per 100 g, and per ounce the spread is a single calorie. What separates them is how long an ounce lasts. Hard candy is the slowest — you cannot chew through an ounce of it quickly — and it carries 0.2 g of fat against taffy's 3.33 g. Taffy is the fastest, because it is soft, wrapped in single-bite portions and designed to be eaten in fistfuls. If you want candy to last, buy the kind that fights back; if you want taffy, buy four pieces and not the bag.
Most popular salt water taffy brands in the United States
Ranked by how widely each product appears among foods sold in the United States, from the BodyPal food database of over 3.3 million products. Calories are the figures printed on each Nutrition Facts label, checked against USDA FoodData Central.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| Taffy Town Salt Water Taffy | 393 cal |
| Taffy Town Gourmet Salt Water Taffy | 393 cal |
| Arizona Snack Company Salt Water Taffy | 393 cal |
| Russell Stover Salt Water Taffy | 381 cal |
| Forbes Candies Salt Water Taffy | 375 cal |
| CVS Gold Emblem Salt Water Taffy | 381 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Salt water taffy FAQs
How many calories are in one piece of salt water taffy?
One wrapped piece weighs about 7 g and carries 28 calories, based on the USDA figure of 397 calories per 100 g. That 7 g comes from retail labels that count four pieces as 28 g, not from a USDA portion, so treat it as a solid average rather than an exact weight for every piece.
How many calories in 4 pieces of salt water taffy?
Four pieces weigh 28 g and come to 111 calories, the serving printed on most US taffy bags. That works out to 25.6 g of carbohydrate, 19.2 g of it sugar, and 0.9 g of fat. Brand labels agree closely, listing 110 calories for the same four pieces.
How much sugar is in salt water taffy?
Salt water taffy holds 68.48 g of sugar per 100 g, which works out to 19.2 g in a four-piece 28 g serving. USDA does not publish added sugars for this record, but taffy is made from sugar, corn syrup and butter, so almost none of that total is arriving from fruit.
Is salt water taffy high in sodium?
No — despite the name, four pieces carry 15 mg of sodium, 1% of the Daily Value, and 100 g holds only 52 mg. The salt in salt water taffy is boardwalk folklore about candy soaked by a storm tide, not a recipe. Store labels do vary, from 89 to 607 mg per 100 g.
Does salt water taffy contain fat?
Yes, a little: taffy holds 3.33 g of fat per 100 g, or 0.9 g in a four-piece serving, from the butter pulled into it. What stands out is the split: 2.05 of those 3.33 g are saturated, so a 28 g serving delivers 0.6 g, 3% of the Daily Value.
How many carbs are in salt water taffy?
A four-piece 28 g serving has 25.6 g of carbohydrate, 9% of the Daily Value, and 100 g has 91.56 g. There is no fiber at all, so every gram is available carbohydrate. Seven pieces, about a small paper bag from a candy shop, push that figure up to 38.5 g.
Is sugar-free taffy lower in calories?
Yes — a sugar-free assorted taffy runs 286 calories per 100 g against 397 for the classic, so four pieces come to 80 calories instead of 111. The sugar alcohols behind that drop are counted differently on the label, and large amounts of them upset some people's digestion.
How many pieces of taffy are in an ounce?
One ounce is 28.35 g and 113 calories, which is about four wrapped pieces at roughly 7 g each. Retail bags make the math easy by printing four pieces as 28 g. Bulk bin taffy sold by weight is a touch lighter per gram, at 368 calories per 100 g.
Similar foods
- Chocolate Chip Cookie — 148 cal per medium cookie
- Steak — 368 cal per regular steak
- Eggnog — 112 cal for 1/2 cup
- Protein Shake — 156 cal per cup
- Bubble Tea — 239 cal per drink
- Apple cider — 114 cal per cup
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the candy dish and BodyPal counts the pieces for you, wrappers and all.
