Sweetheart Trivia
February 15, 2011 Leave a comment
Did you know the best-selling Valentine’s Day candies are not Godiva chocolates but our own locally manufactured 
Sweetheart Conversation Hearts? Over 8 billion candy hearts with romantically inspired messages were sold last year by the New England Confectionary Company located in Revere, Ma.
We can credit the American colonists for starting the practice of making a gift of candy with a message inscribed on it. Early American would make homemade hard candies and etch messages into the surface to give to a sweetheart. Around the time of the Civil War, Oliver Chase decided to turn a tradition into a successful candy business by founding New England Confectionary Company.
They originally manufactured candy in the shape of a seashell with the message printed on a piece of paper wedged into the candy shell. A major innovation was introduced in 1902 when NECCO produced the candies called Sweet Hearts with the mottoes printed directly on the pastel candies. They offered hearts, seashell and other interesting shapes like horseshoes and baseballs.
Times have changed and so have the flavors and mottos of Valentine’s Day most loved confection. NECCO recently introduced new flavors and sayings. The new flavors include strawberry, green apple, lemon, grape, orange, and blue raspberry. For the first time in its 145-year history, the public was invited to participate in an online survey to decide which phrases of love would appear on conversation hearts . The winners include: “Tweet Me,” “Text Me,” “You Rock,” “Soul Mate,” “Love Bug,” and “Me + You.” They join classic expressions that continue to appear on the candies: “Puppy Love,” “Sweet Love,” “Sweat Pea,” and “Love Me.”
New sayings also featured food-inspired phrases, such as “Recipe 4 Love,” “Table 4 Two,” and “Top Chef.”
Some favorites among the more than one hundred Sweetheart sayings have been in circulation since the hearts were first factory-made in 1902. These classics include “Kiss Me,” “Sweet Talk,” and “Be Mine.” Sometimes a motto is discontinued for a time and then makes a reappearance while others are gone but not forgotten. No worries- it may not be long before “Dig Me” makes a sweetheart of a comeback!
Visit our website www.agordon.com for important and timely information on insurance topics for you and your sweetheart.
Kasey McCarthy, CPCU
Manager
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