Everyone wants to hear sweet words on Valentine’s Day. One of the most popular ways to do so is with Necco’s Sweethearts! Necco is a New England Confectionery Company that was established by Oliver R. Chase in 1847. Chase also invented the miraculous machine that cuts candy into specific shapes. Oliver’s brother, Daniel Chase, began printing sayings onto the nicely shaped candies much like a stamp. Together, they debuted Sweethearts candies in 1901.

Since then, anyone can find these sugary hearts in grocery and convenient stores around the country! Sweethearts are produced from late February straight through to the middle of January, and about 100,000 pounds of them are made every day. Around Valentine’s Day, 8 billion are sold within six weeks! The six assorted pastel colors have a variety of printed phrases, but the three most illustrious are “Be Mine”, “Kiss Me”, and “Be True”.

Necco is always looking for suggestions that they can use on next year’s batch! You can submit your own ideas of what they should print onto Sweethearts by either mailing them to Sweethearts, NECCO, 235 American Legion Highway, Revere, MA 02151 or e-mailing wonderful workers at Necco by going to this link: http://www.necco.com/ContactUs/Default.asp.