February 14, 2013

How a Sweetheart Is Made: The Epic Industrial Odyssey of the Most Famous Valentine’s Day Snack

Since the turn of the 20th century, more than 300 billion Sweethearts have rolled off the conveyor belts of the New England Confectionery Company near Boston. Today the company makes 4 million pounds of Sweethearts in the six weeks before Valentine’s Day. This is the story of a little candy heart — born in a mixer, mushed by a roller, tattooed, stamped, fed through an oven, and stuffed in a huge sack for months. (Don’t worry, it has a happy ending.)

Read more. [Images: NECCO]

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    1 deliscious sweatheart, many deliscious sweethearts! Here’s how they make this Valentine’s treat…
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    As my mother astutely says, “So similar to the human heart’s journey—first being sweetened, then being shmooshed,...