153 years of uninterrupted Sweethearts candies, interrupted

Let me guess… the store is Apple Cabin foods:

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I miss NECCO wafers, but I think that’s either hometown pride or whatever illness keeps me living in this wretched climate year after year.

As an interesting side note, the original NECCO building in Central Square is now home to a pharmaceutical company. From one drug to another I guess.

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Brach’s still makes them.

https://dp3uqzkpcfq4k.cloudfront.net/image/2236

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And my axe!

(Because I also ate and enjoyed them.)

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They are not the same… Still tasty but not the same.

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It’s probably a good thing that the NECCO company is changing hands. I love NECCO wafers but this article was disturbing:

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I’m pretty convinced by a couple points that podcaster Mike Pesca recently made about this situation:

  • Pretty much all specialty holiday candy is bad. If it was good enough to stand on its own merits they’d just sell it year round and call it “candy.”

  • This is an example of the free market working correctly. If there was a real demand for this awful candy then there would be a profit motive to keep producing it to meet that demand. Clearly not many people actually want this stuff, they just like to talk about it.

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the hearts are the same candy as the wafers just a different form factor.
heck even the above posted Brachs hearts are the same kind of candy.

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Well, the reason that there’s no Sweethearts candy this year is because the new owners realized they didn’t have enough time to ramp up production after taking ownership to meet demand – they were expected to deliver over 8 billion candy hearts for the Valentines Day season. So they’re taking a year off to prep for 2020. Clearly there’s people buying this stuff.

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Me for one, well not this year but I look forward to making up for it next year.

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Fair enough, but I suspect that if demand for these (and the Necco Wafers) had been anywhere near as high as it is for more delicious candies then Necco never would have been forced to stop production and sell to new owners in the first place. Successful businesses generally don’t have to stop making stuff, even if they do choose to sell the company to new owners.

But I’ve ragged on Necco enough. It is pretty impressive that they managed to sell pretty much the same products for over 150 years, whether or not I personally liked their stuff.

Speak for yourself - I’d happily buy marzipan chocolate pigs and chocolate oranges all year.
American Christmas candy seems a bit dreary though.

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Came here to mention this. I prefer the Brach’s version anyway. The Necco variety is too hard.

I do have a nostalgic heart for Necco wafers though.

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Hell, before global candy distribution became easier in the 90s, I was known to eat Lance’s vending machine candy that had to have been 150 years old.

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Let it be noted that this happened on Donald Trump’s watch.

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I believe those were actually clove.

But yeah like Necco wafers just fine. Always felt like one of those things that many people hate without having tried. Just cause its a thing to hate them.

Now I’m not gonna pick a Necco wafer over something else. And that’s probably their problem. Seems like they’ve been coasting on the Retro candy thing so long most of their products blew straight past vintage on their way to antique.

There are least 2 different candies that are pretty much just sweetened Eucharist.

They’re always weirdly mushy when they come from another brand.

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Every candy Necco made was atrocious.

But the Necco Wafers used to be accepted as quarters by the machines tolling the Chicago Skyway, and some others. So we were faithful customers.

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We heard that was true of certain machines at the arcade growing up.

Lot of those machines had clogged coin slots. Owner switched to tokens and stopped giving out Necco wafers as a 5 ticket prize.

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