Audio By Carbonatix

It was the middle of the night in Weathersfield, Ohio: about 2:30 am on Monday. A semi-truck driver decided to take five at the Petro Truck Stop on Salt Springs Road. While he pulled the rig into the parking lot, though, he realized his trailer—chock-full of gummy bear candies—had caught fire.

Emergency crews arrived at the scene. While the flames didn’t cause any injuries, it tore through and destroyed the semi-truck and its sugary contents.

If the semi-truck was loaded with Haribo gummy bears, we’re dealing with premium sugar cargo

Details about the semi-truck’s origins and planned destination weren’t provided. But let’s say the trailer housed a great big load of the best-selling brand. After all, Haribo owns about 20% of the U.S. gummy bear market.

A Haribo semi driving through Weatherfield, Ohio, at 2:30 a.m. on a Monday likely came from Wisconsin. Haribo’s U.S. factory sits in Pleasant Prairie, just north of Chicago.

That plant ships tons of gummy bears across the country. The semi-truck probably left late Sunday or early Monday, heading east on I-80 or the Ohio Turnpike. It may have been bound for a warehouse in Pennsylvania, New York, or the Carolinas. Weatherfield sits right in that path. At that hour, the driver was probably avoiding traffic and aiming for an early delivery.

Haribo sells in bulk at around $3 per pound wholesale, sometimes more, depending on packaging. A full semi can carry up to 45,000 pounds of product. Multiply that out, and you’ve got about $135,000 worth of bears on board.

If those were retail-packed in bags and headed to stores, the value jumps. Retail can hit $6 to $10 per pound, depending on the market. That means the snackpocalypse could cost closer to $300,000 to $450,000 at full retail. So the semi-truck fire didn’t just melt candy: it could have killed off a small gummy empire.