With an estimated 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate sold annually, Valentine’s Day marks another peak in sales for candy stores. Lowery’s Candies on Kilgore Avenue shows no exception, as it plans for its single biggest day of sales.
In a back room of Muncie’s main chocolate shop, three women place different kinds of chocolate in a giant red velvet heart-shaped box. When filled, the box will weigh 8 pounds. The man who ordered it does so every year for his family. Off to the side, Lowery’s owner Vicki Brown bags individual dark chocolate hearts about the size of a hand. She finishes off each package with red ribbon.
For Lowery’s, Valentine’s Day begins as soon as the calendar page flips to February. That’s when it starts to see an increase in orders as people begin planning ahead.
Glenn Day, a teacher at Wes-Del in Gaston, Ind., learned the hard way about buying early.
“I made the mistake last year of coming in on the day of,” he said. “It gets pretty crazy in here.”
Brown would agree, saying the line stretches out the door.
Day has been buying Valentine’s Day chocolates from Lowery’s for his wife for the past three years.
“I sampled some stuff, and now I guess I’m hooked,” he said.
Brown said the benefits of buying from a local candy shop outweigh the benefits of purchasing prepackaged boxes from a bigger store.
First, customers can pick and choose exactly what flavors they want. Lowery’s features a variety of crèmes such as maple, orange or coconut, as well as chocolate filled with nuts or fruits. If they don’t have what a customer wants, they can make it. Anything can be dipped in chocolate, and Brown is eager to experiment with new ideas.
Last year, she dipped dill pickles and bacon; this year, she created the Hot Stuff bag, which features Fritos and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dipped in chocolate.
“We like to make something different than what you can get anywhere else,” Brown said.
Another thing setting Lowery’s apart from the big box stores is its process of making the chocolate. Instead of using an enrober, a machine that flows a curtain of chocolate over candy pieces moving on a conveyor belt, workers at Lowery’s hand dip each individual piece, a process they have been perfecting since they opened in 1941.
Hand dipping ensures that the chocolate stays silkier, creamier and free of additives, Brown said.
Dipping is an art all its own, especially when it comes to the crèmes, said Pat Davis, a dipper at Lowery’s.
The dipper must roll a piece of crème with their left hand, while continuously tempering, or mixing, melted chocolate on a base in front of them with their right. The chocolate is pulled up from a kettle and mixed on a base in order to cool it down. If the chocolate is too hot or too cold, it turns a gray color when dry.
Then, they dip the crème and finish the top off with a swirled mark called a “throw.” Each piece features its own throw.
“I thought it was going to be easy,” said Pat Davis, who had been a cake decorator prior to working at Lowery’s. “But it takes three years to become a good dipper.”
Davis has been a dipper at Lowery’s for eight years.
On Valentine’s Day, she said it’s all hands on deck and they focus on dipping strawberries so that they are freshly made.
Sales are already up this year, Brown said. She attributes this to Valentine’s Day falling midweek this year. She said people are more apt to buy chocolate as a gift instead of planning a big dinner date as they would if it were to fall on a weekend.
Brown’s Valentine’s Day plans include spending the whole day in the store. She and her husband generally don’t exchange gifts, except for the year he gave her a box of Russell Stover chocolates as a joke. She ended up emptying the box and filling it with her own Lowery’s chocolates.
