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The Sights and Sounds of Necco
This year for Valentines Day, two lucky Harvard Crimson editors got to have a tour of the The New England Confectionary Company's manufacturing plant. Necco has been around for more than a hundred years since 1847. From 1927 until 2003, the Necco factory was located on Mass Ave in Cambridge but today, Necco produces all its confections at its Revere location just north of Boston.
Necco is most famous for its wafers and of, of course, the Sweethearts. These Valentine's Day candies account for about 25 to 30% of the factory's output. More than 12 to 14 million pounds of Sweetheart candies are produced each year- a feat that requires the candies production to be staggered continuously throughout the year even though they only hit store shelves in the weeks leading up to Valentines Day. For those not interested in romantic one-liners, Necco produces a range of other products such as candy buttons, thin mints, lozenges, Clark bars, and Mary Jane's. The chocolate Skybar contains four compartments of different fillings: caramel, vanilla, peanut butter, and chocolate. Even the peanut butter is made from peanuts roasted in the same factory.
To make they tiny conversation hearts candies, sugar dough made of confectionary sugar, corn syrup, flavorings, and die are moved from mixers to conveyor belts where they're painted with the famous cute phrases, cut into hearts, and moved to the ovens. The words printed on the wafers say things like "Love." "Let's kiss," etc. The wafers have had romantic sayings printed on them since 1860. After baking in the oven, both the Sweethearts and the Necco wafers are sorted and put into bags to dry. When they're done drying, the candies fall through an opening in the floor on their way to the packaging room on the first level of the factory. The wafers are stacked up and rolled in wax paper. The Sweethearts candies are packaged into a number of different product configurations that such as bulk-sized bags or individual-sized cartons with room for Valentine's Day messages on the sides. After being packed into boxes,, the cartons of Sweethearts are shipped out for sale in stores across the country.
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