Iconic ‘Sweethearts’ will be missing from shelves this Valentine’s Day

Digital Originals

This year, expressing your love during Valentine’s Day may be a little bit harder—because the iconic “Sweethearts” candies won’t be an option.

The company that made them for more than 100 years, the New England Confectionary Company — Necco — went out of business last year.

CGTN’s Yasmeen Alamiri reports.

Necco has been suffering from financial issues for a while, with a bankruptcy auction purchase of the company in 2018 by Round Hill Investments, but then was sold twice more, finally ending in the hands of the Spangler Candy Company for an undisclosed price. One of the top contending buyout deals for the company was priced at around $17.3 million.

The absence of the candy from store shelves has created mass online purchases of the sweets through third parties.

While the new owners have promised to bring the hearts back in time for Valentine’s Day of 2020, they were not able to produce them in time for the February 14, 2019 holiday.

However, also impacted by the end of the Necco company is their equally iconic wafers. First made in 1847, the wafer is one of the oldest candies in the United States. The company said that the wafers were actually used as sustenance by explorer Donald MacMillan during an Arctic exploration in 1913 because of their ability to endure the elements. This was again done in the 1930s by American Admiral Byrd who took the wafers to the South Pole to sustain his men.