The Big Brand Name Behind The First Ever Box Of Chocolates

Valentine's Day is the one day of the year dedicated to love and the expression of it, which naturally entails lots and lots of chocolates — specifically, the kind that come in boxes. But why is that? The real reason isn't quite so romantic. While the holiday did originate as a day to honor the Roman saint, St. Valentine, and did, in time, become a day known for romance, the chocolate boxes that line store shelves every year are much more a product of colonization and industrialization than dreamy admiration. 

Much of the world celebrated Valentine's Day by the mid 1800s. But it was the following years of European colonization and slavery across cocoa plantations in the West Indies and Africa, paired with the modern infrastructure and machines that became available at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, that made chocolate into a regular commodity. One famous British manufacturing family in particular, however, was responsible for making chocolate, and likely chocolate boxes, a Valentine's Day staple — and that was the Cadburys. 

A newly developed chocolate-processing technique left what is now an iconic chocolate empire, Cadbury, with an excess amount of cocoa butter. It was Richard Cadbury who, in the midst of the 1868 Valentine's Day season, had the idea to use the company's excess product to make Cadbury chocolates specifically marketed for the holiday. Sold in beautifully decorated heart-shaped boxes, the chocolates and their packaging have been a symbol of the holiday — and a sweet expression of love — ever since.

Sadly for the Cadbury business, Richard Cadbury did not see his true genius when he began marketing chocolates for Valentine's Day. He failed to patent the iconic heart-shaped boxes he adorned, decorated, and designed under the Cadbury name all on his own, and, once American chocolatiers across the pond heard word of the idea, they were sure to cash in on the holiday, too. 

Today, you'll find store shelves and aisles full of various brands' heart-shaped boxes around the Valentine's Day season — each full of many different flavors, shapes, styles, and fillings of chocolates. Forrest Gump said it best in his eponymous 1994 film: "My momma always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.'" That much is true from the moment you're buying the box, to the moment you bite into one of the chocolates inside. 

Fortunately, Tasting Table taste testers tried and ranked 12 store-bought boxed chocolates to make your choice a bit easier when you're at the store. From well known chocolatiers of the likes of Lindt and Ferrero Rocher to less expected favorites from Trader Joe's, our taste testers have you covered on which chocolate box should be your top priority this Valentine's Day. On the other hand, if chocolates aren't you or your Valentine's thing, consider the best non-chocolate Valentine's Day candy you can buy. Or, skip the candy entirely and grab yourself a bottle of Valentine's Day wine for less than $20.