00:00Hello, you're on the air with Refinery29.
00:03Hi, I'd like to give a shout out to my sweetheart.
00:05My boyfriend.
00:06My boo, my bae, my sweet food.
00:07I'm calling in to give a shout out to myself.
00:09I want to give a shout out to you.
00:10Thanks so much for everything, Mom.
00:11Have a happy Valentine's Day.
00:12Thanks for calling.
00:13This next one's for all the ones you love.
00:21Back in 1866, if you wanted to show some love,
00:24the sweetest way was via the Necco sweetheart.
00:27And for over 100 years, those sweethearts
00:30have been made in this very factory.
00:34It all starts with a little sugar.
00:38Actually, a lot of sugar.
00:40900 pounds to be exact.
00:42It's all dumped into a mixing vat with cornstarch,
00:47corn syrup, various flavors and colors.
00:53The ingredients are slowly mixed together
00:56until they turn into dough.
01:06The dough is transported, divided,
01:09and fed into an extruding machine.
01:12There's a million ways to say, I love you,
01:15but Necco keeps it short and sweet.
01:18In this machine, the freshly mixed dough
01:21is rolled into a thin layer and fed into a stamper,
01:24where special messages are printed using candied ink.
01:28Be mine. Marry me. I do.
01:31Which line is your favorite?
01:36Next up is the cutter.
01:37A cutter assembly cuts the heart shapes out of the printed dough.
01:43We're partial to the hearts, but this candy used to come in all different shapes.
01:48Baseballs, postcards, and horseshoes.
01:51Uh-oh. Not to worry.
01:54Misprints and excess dough, called webbing,
01:56are put back into the hopper and re-rolled to make more sweethearts.
02:01A moving belt carries the hearts through a drying tunnel
02:04that's been heated to 140 degrees.
02:10150,000 hearts come through the dryer every hour.
02:15They're collected in trays and placed into a heated room,
02:19where they continue to dry for another eight hours.
02:25When they've finally dried, all of the colors are mixed together
02:28and transferred into a gigantic holding tank.
02:35That's one ton of sweethearts.
02:40This next heart is our favorite,
02:42when these little love notes are all packed up and sent out into the world.
02:47Because whether you already have a sweetheart,
02:49or are practicing some self-love,
02:52we could all use a little sugar.
02:54Whose day do you want to sweeten up?
02:56Send this video their way.
