daily.surf

Price tags · Puzzle #10 · Friday, October 9

Price tags: the answers

Four questions, each with one true number. Here they are with their answers, how to reason each one out, and where the number comes from. Play today's Price tags.

  1. 1. A year of candy: How much did Americans spend on candy, gum and mints in 2025?

    Photo: OhanaSurf, CC BY-SA 4.0
    Chocolate's share
    51.7%
    Measured by
    National Confectioners Association

    The answer: about $55 billion. It was a record, and the NCA expects sales to reach $62.2 billion by 2030.

    Napkin math
    1. 330Mpeople in the US
    2. ×$3of candy each a week
    3. ×52weeks a year

    ≈$51.5B

    Source: National Confectioners Association, Confectionery Sales Climb to $55 Billion in 2025

  2. 2. A day at Chipotle: How much did Chipotle take in on an average day in 2025?

    Photo: Missvain, CC BY 4.0
    Restaurants
    4,056 at the end of 2025

    The answer: about $32.6 million. Chipotle opened 334 company-owned restaurants in 2025, 257 of them with a Chipotlane drive-thru.

    Napkin math
    1. 4,000restaurants
    2. ×700orders each a day
    3. ×$13a burrito or bowl

    ≈$36.4M

    Source: Chipotle Mexican Grill (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), Chipotle Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results

  3. 3. Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci: What did Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sell for at Christie's in New York on 15 November 2017?

    Photo: Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain
    What
    A painting of Christ by Leonardo, circa 1500
    Rarity
    One of fewer than 20 surviving paintings accepted as by Leonardo's own hand
    Sold
    Christie's, New York, November 2017

    The answer: $450.3 million. It is still the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, and the price includes Christie's fees.

    Napkin math: If the very best paintings sell for around $100 million, a lost Leonardo, one of fewer than 20, could plausibly fetch several times that.

    Source: Christie's, The restoration & conservation of Salvator Mundi

  4. 4. A sandwich for everyone: At the August 2026 average price of white bread, what would the bread cost to make a sandwich for every American, using two 1-ounce slices each?

    Photo: User:Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0
    Bread
    plain white sandwich loaf

    The answer: about $78 million. That is about 43 million pounds of bread at the BLS city-average price of $1.82 a pound.

    Napkin math
    1. 330Mpeople in the US
    2. ×2slices each
    3. ÷20slices in a loaf
    4. ×$2a loaf

    ≈$66M

    Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average Price: Bread, White, Pan (Cost per Pound/453.6 Grams) in U.S. City Average

All of puzzle #10 · The archive