‘Nostalgia’: Saying goodbye to Cherry Blossom chocolate

The Cherry Blossom has been around for close to 150 years, and now, the Hershey company has stopped production.

Montrealer Lev Bukhman recalls the memories of the the candy from his childhood.

“The Cherry Blossom was just a happy, pleasurable treat and something that you have memories of. It’s just part of the fabric of your childhood, at least it was for me,” he said.

Amid the announcement, some Montrealers are trying to stock up, like Noah Mathieu. He was able to buy 35.

“I bought a lot but it’s like all for little gifts for my family because like it’s always been in my family and everybody, you know, all gonna miss the taste of cherry blossoms,” Mathieu said.

“I left some cause I think it’s unfair, it would have been unfair of me to steal all of them. So I didn’t even take half of what was left.”

The chocolate is made up of maraschino cherry and cherry syrup surrounded by a mixture of chocolate, shredded coconut and roasted peanut pieces.

As the demand increases, so have the number of ads on Facebook Marketplace. The ads ranging from something reasonable to $6 for one, to others charging up to $9,500 for an unopened pack of 24.

“I think it’s all about nostalgia, I mean, especially in Quebec,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor and director at the Agri-Food Analytics Lab of Dalhousie University. “And you can see that the news coming from Hershey resonates more around the province of Quebec.

“I can tell, because I cover the entire country and I can tell that because it comes from Quebec and originally from Quebec — it got transferred over to Smith Falls many years ago — but I think the product itself was highly recognized and loved before 1989. When it got transferred over to Smith Falls, that’s when the marketing dwindled, there wasn’t much going on there and the product was kind of forgotten.

“I think it’s more about, it’s about rarity, thinking that this is actually coming to an end. There are fewer products out there.”

Mathieu put up an ad on Facebook Marketplace asking for $69,420. It was done as a joke, he says.

“Since they got discontinued not long ago, people were going crazy and some people were posting on Facebook for like ridiculous prices,” Mathieu explained. “So like one guy was selling 24 for 100, another guy was selling seven of them for 700. So I just wanted to take the joke to the extreme and like name it like stupidly high price. Like it was almost $70,000 for one. Just like mock these people because I don’t think it’s fair to like buy so many just to resell them.

“It’s purely a joke. I know nobody’s gonna buy it. If someone offers me $70,000 for one, I will sell it. But it’s not, it’s mostly a joke. It’s the gift to my family and friends.

“I didn’t think it was fair of people to just go to corner stores or grocery stores, buy as many as they could just with the intent of selling them for profit.”

He adds that he feels a sense of sadness and will savour his haul.

“I just think it’s sad because cherry blossoms have been a really big part of Quebec’s history. I mean, they were made in Sherbrooke for so many decades. And I just think it’s sad to like see it go after a hundred, like over a hundred years of being made.

“I know I’m gonna run out eventually. ‘Cause I only get to keep three to myself, the rest is going to friends and family, but I know I’m gonna run out. I know the last one I’m really gonna enjoy and take my time, but I know I’m gonna run out eventually.”

Bukhman is also sharing the feeling of sadness.

“I felt sad a little bit, and I felt, I guess, a little bit confused why that would be discontinued. I think it’s something everyone still enjoys and loves, and you still see it on the store shelves, you see people buying it. I don’t know the numbers of it, but I think it’s something that still gives people a little bit of joy.”

Not everyone was as lucky as Mathieu in their quest to stock up, or simply to get one final taste of the sweet treat.

Daphne Dambrine tells CityNews she was not able to get her hands on the iconic yellow box.

“I just wake up and I see in the news, I don’t remember exactly which journal, but I just read it and I said, ‘oh, I will wake up and go to see just one, only one to taste it for the last time.'” Dambrine said.

“But finally, I visit one Dollarama, two Dollarama, and other places, and the last place I did, she said to me, ‘oh, you’re the third one looking for (Cherry Blossoms), so we don’t have it anymore.”

Fun Fact: the chocolate has a connection to Montreal. The Cherry Blossom started off production in the 1890s by the Lowney Company. The Lowney Factory in Montreal was built in 1905.

Although it’s condos now, some of Lowney can be seen in Montreal’s Griffintown, where the chocolates were once made. Hershey Canada acquired the Lowney brand in the 1980s.

“In essence, I think people are just buying memories. My guess is that they just want to keep them. They won’t necessarily eat them,” said Charlebois.

“If they’re getting those kinds of prices, I think the message is that people care about their Cherry Blossom, and they want to hold onto a little piece of the magic,” added Bukhman.

Charlebois questioned: “With the popularity of the product, once the announcement is made, would a company change its mind and reestablish cherry blossom? That would be interesting. Would Hershey Canada change its mind and start producing the candy again? That would be interesting. If there’s so much demand, if people feel so nostalgic, maybe they’ll feel that it’s time to refresh the product and relaunch it. That is possible.

“We’ve seen that in the past. I mean, some products disappeared and then they came back. Yeah, absolutely. And it works once in a while. So you never know. You never know the Cherry Blossom. Perhaps a group in Quebec would actually buy the brand from Hershey and start a new company. Who knows?”