NECCO history

The first commercial chewing gum was made in 1848 on a Franklin stove in Bangor, Maine.

Schrafft's — the candy, chocolate, and cake company based in Charlestown, Massachusetts where the Saveriano family got their start — was founded in 1861.

Baker’s Chocolate Company was bought by a series of corporations starting in 1896; the old mill buildings are condos now.

Packing gum at the Curtis Chewing Gum factory, around 1900

In 1901, the three candy outfits incorporated their business under the name Necco Sweets with $1 million in capital.

Necco introduced the hugely successful conversation hearts in 1902 and proceeded to sell billions of them.

Not the sweetest or easiest to eat, the New England candy is still a favorite of customers who’ve been buying it since Otto Keller founded the shop in 1906.

He’d been making a hard candy on a stick since 1908.

It was founded in Boston and moved to Cambridge in 1914.

Doctor Davis Braided Candies were so popular that people visiting Pawtucket ‘would be sure to take some away with them, they liked it so much,’ according to Catherine E. Martin Larkin in 1928.

Three months later New England Confectionery Co. purchased the plant and reopened it as the Haviland Candy Co., which traced its origins to the 1929 formation of the Deran Confectionery Co.

13, 1931, 23 years after he started making the New England candy.

Unveiled in 1938, the Sky Bar was the first multicenter candy bar.

Stark was a family-owned candy manufacturer founded in 1939.

A Sky Bar advertisement was one of only six signs relit in Times Square in 1945 after three years of darkness, during which the United States war effort conserved energy.

Oliver Chase had founded what would later become Necco in 1947.

In 1950, Boston and Cambridge, Mass., were home to 140 candy companies.

Olympia Dukakis, the Governor's cousin, claimed in a speech that she had worked for Necco for six months in 1959 and had been exposed to "awful" working conditions.

Around when that transition took place, Saveriano decided to go to Boston's biggest candy maker, Necco. It was dissolved when PET Milk purchased Schrafft's in 1967.

Then, in 1968 he installed a new management team headed by former auto industry engineer Domenic Antonellis.

In 1973, Pez built its New England candy factory in Orange, Conn.

The Charlestown factory closed in 1984 and was renovated as offices.

Importantly, in 1990 Necco acquired the Howard B. Stark Candy Co. for $11 million.

In 1993, for example, Necco installed an advanced new packaging system designed to speed up production and provide faster changeover to meet different packaging demands.

Necco posted sales of about $60 million in 1994.

Revenue for 1995, though, was expected to surge toward the $100 million mark.

Going into 1996, Necco was working to consolidate its recent acquisitions and streamline the overall company into an efficient, diversified candy manufacturer.

1997 would mark the 150th anniversary of one of the oldest companies in the United States.

It’s National Junk Food Day! Indulge with the 10 Worst Candies Jul 21, 2017

In 2018, Ohio-based Spangler Candy Co. bought the company and NECCO wafers went on hiatus.

A Timeline of the History of NECCO Feb 06, 2019