Love Hearts, everyone knows those, right? Small, round, pastel coloured chalky sweets with a friendly or romantic message embossed within a love heart on them. These sweets can be chewed or sucked, but dissolve in the mouth to a powdery texture. Love Hearts come in a tube shape, stacked together and wrapped in paper and then clear plastic. There are six flavours of Love Heart in each pack: white (slightly tart vanilla flavour), yellow (sherbet-like flavour with a sharp lemon aftertaste), green (a slightly lime flavour), orange (a sweet, slightly orange flavour), purple (an unusual, slightly perfumed berry-like flavour) and red (cherry flavour).
A Brief History Of Love Hearts
Love Hearts were first made in Britain in 1954, 26 years after the formation of Swizzels Ltd. The company started off in a factory on Star Lane, Canning Town, London, before moving to a larger factory on Drivers Avenue, Plaistow, London. During the Blitz, in 1940, production was moved to a disused textile mill in New Mills, Derbyshire, where it still is today. David Dee invented the sweets to be used in Christmas crackers, but they were so popular Swizzels Ltd started producing them for sale when Christmas was over.
One of the things that made Love Hearts so popular was the messages on each heart. These messages are all short and include phrases like:
Be Happy
Be Mine
All Yours
Date Me
Dream On
Email Me
I Love You
Hot Lips
Let's Party
Kiss Me
In the 1980s the sweets were sold internationally with the messages translated into the language of the country. Over the years the messages embossed on the sweets has changed to keep up with technology, "call me" still appears, however "fax me" was used when fax machines were popular, but this has changed to phrases like "page me" and, later, "text me".
To celebrate the 60th anniversary (or birthday) of Love Hearts Swizzels ran a competition where fans of the sweets could design their very own Love Heart. The winners’ messages, such as ‘TAKE A SELFIE’, ‘TWEET ME’ and ‘SKYPE ME’ were added into the Love Hearts rolls. Not bad for the sweet made in the "Love Factory".
Comments