Lovers' Treat: Heart-Shaped Chocolate Box

Feb. 12, 2010— -- What better way to say "I love you" on Valentine's Day than with some chocolates? And traditionally, those sweets come in a heart-shaped box.

For those looking to do something just a bit extra for that special someone, consider a bit of chocolate tourism. Sure you could visit Hershey, Pa. -- known as "The Sweetest Place on Earth" and hit the visitors center built by the candy giant.

But for the true romantics out there who want to escape the crowds and try something untraditional, and international, nothing beats a trip just across the Maine border to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, home of Ganong Chocolate -- a family-run company known throughout Canada for its chocolate maker sweets arriving inside a heart-shaped box.

The company has been making the heart-shaped box for nearly 80 years. And while it's now synonymous with the second week of February, the Ganong box traces its origins back not to St. Valentine's Day but to jolly old St. Nick.

That's right, Ganong Chocolate first unveiled the heart-shaped box for Christmas. It wasn't until several years later that the idea became fashionable for lovers and can now be found everywhere from high-end chocolate stores to the local pharmacy.

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Bryana Ganong, a fifth-generation chocolate maker, said her family's business started as a general store in 1873.

"They found that there was quite a bit of requests for chocolate products," she said. "They first started selling them, then they started making the products themselves and the business grew from there."

The family used to produce boxes on the top floor of the chocolate factory. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the company made all sorts of boxes, including tiny "glove boxes" that gentlemen could easily throw in a jacket pocket for gifts to their girlfriends or wives.

During the Depression-era the boxes became a bit fancier; the idea being that they would come with chocolates but then could be reused as sewing boxes or jewelry boxes.

"It would have been a fancier box that in many cases people would have kept and stored other things," Ganong said.