The Cherry Blossom consisted of a maraschino cherry and cherry syrup surrounded by a mixture of chocolate, shredded coconut and roasted peanut pieces. Cherry Blossoms were packaged in yellow boxes.[3] Contrary to common myth, filling was not injected inside the chocolate. The cherry candy was coated with an enzyme, invertase, that breaks down the solid into a liquid over the next 1 to 2 weeks.[4]
History
The candy had been manufactured since the 1890s by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Canada. A prominent man in Mansfield, Massachusetts, Lowney opened and operated his candy factory in the city, being also involved in the development of other interests in the city. In the mid 1890s a subsidiary of Lowney Co. was opened in Canada. The company continued to grow and so did the Cherry Blossom.[5]
The Walter M. Lowney Company of Canada was later acquired by Standard Brands in 1968, and Lowney became a division of Standard Brands.[6] In 1981, Nabisco and Standard Brands Ltd merged to form a new entity, which now owned the Lowney division.[7] Finally, Hershey Canada purchased the candy unit of Nabisco in 1987, which included Lowney.[8][9]
The Lowney manufacturing plant resided in the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec up until 1989, at which time it was closed, and all Lowney chocolate manufacturing was moved to an existing Hershey plant in Smiths Falls, Ontario.[10] The facility in Smiths Falls, northeast of Kingston, later closed in 2012.[11][5] In January 2025, Hershey announced that they were discontinuing Cherry Blossoms.[12] Shortly afterwards, some grocery stores reported a noticeable increase in sales of the product.[13]
↑ Austen, Ian (2025-07-12). "A Beloved Canadian Chocolate Bar Disappears From the Market". The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-15. Hershey announced it had killed off the Cherry Blossom, a maraschino cherry with gooey cherry syrup that was coated in a mixture of chocolate, shredded coconut and peanuts. It came in a distinctive large yellow box that held a single candy.
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