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Valentine’s Day may seem romantic, but to candy companies, it’s serious business. Our annual ode to St. Valentine is one of the most important and competitive days on candy company calendars, and every year, confectioners roll out special-edition heart-shaped chocolate bars and other product innovations to capture consumers’ dollars (nevermind hearts). When it comes to speaking to modern courtship, though, one candy brand has a unique leg up on the competitionand it’s built into the candy itself. Sweethearts were designed to be updated. The pastel-colored conversation hearts stay relevant year over year because their embossed messages can be easily and quickly updated, transforming a generic shape into a crunchy candy canvas that’s adaptable to the moment. That makes the face of these tiny hearts some of the most valuable real estate in the Valentine’s Day candy landscape, because the right quip could convert a passerby into a sale. And this year, their newest messages are all about the struggles of dating in today’s economy. [Photo: Spangler Candy Company] Sweethearts’s latest sayings have been dubbed “Love in This Economy” after an online survey that the brand’s owner, the family-owned, Ohio-based Spangler Candy Company, conducted last December of 2,000 Gen Z and millennials who are single, casually dating, or in a serious relationship, making an edible sort of consumer sentiment index. The candy company’s survey found 80% of respondents said the economy was impacting their Valentine’s Day plans. Their new two-line messages, then”Split Rent,” “Share Logn,” “Car Poll,” “Buy N Bulk,” and “Cook For 2″reflect the realities of dating and courtship during a time of high prices, persistent inflation, and low consumer confidence. But just because the company has introduced new messages doesn’t mean it’s abandoned more evergreen ones. “We’re careful about evolving the sayings because Sweethearts must be both nostalgic and new,” Spangler Candy Company vice president of marketing Evan Brock tells Fast Company. Classic messages like “Marry Me,” “Cutie Pie,” and “Ooo La La” are included every year, while new sayings reflect how people express affection and connection today, she says. “Our role is to strike a balance between enduring tradition and modern expression.” [Photo: Evan-Amos/Wiki Commons Some of the original messages stamped into the first Sweethearts from 1902 were Be Mine, Be True, and Kiss Me,” according to Smithsonian Magazine. But over the years, the candy has been updated with the times. “Fax Me” turned into “Text Me,” and in 2024, the candies were purposefully misprinted to symbolize the confusion and mixed messages of situationships. [Photo: Spangler Candy Company] Unlike M&Ms or Skittles, which use the surface of their candy shells to display their visual brands, Sweethearts has more flexibility to adapt to culture. But even so, it’s thoughtful about adding new sayings. Embossing the hearts is a highly coordinated process that involves engraving new phrases onto custom-made printing plates that will stamp the words onto each individual candy. There’s no understating how important Valentine’s Day is for candy sales. Along with Easter, Halloween, and the winter holiday season, the four holidays generate a whopping 62% of annual sales for the $54 billion confectionery industry, according to the National Confectioners Association. For Sweethearts, it’s practically the whole ballgame, since no one’s buying conversation hearts for Christmas. By tapping into current events and changing trends in courtship, the more-than-a-century-old brand is resonating with Valentine’s Day now.
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E-Commerce
This morning, shares of two of the largest computer memory companies that trade on U.S. markets are up yet again. The stock prices of Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) and Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) rose after a Japanese memory firm issued a surprising outlook. Heres what you need to know. Stock prices jump as demand continues Shares in several memory chip makers traded on U.S. markets are currently up in premarket trading this morning. The companies include Micron and Sandisk, as well as Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) and Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX). As of this writing, Micron shares are currently up 2.9%, Sandisk shares are up 6.2%, Western Digital shares are up 3%, and Seagate shares are up 2.5%. While all four companies make memory chips, Western Digital and Seagate primarily focus on computer storage, leaving Micron and Sandisk as the two primary memory chip makers traded on U.S. exchanges. And those two companies are getting a lot of attention, not just today, but as of late, due to the memory chip shortage that global supply chains are currently dealing with. As Fast Company previously reported, there is a global memory chip shortage in 2026. Computer memory, also known as RAM, is the component inside a computer that saves and processes short-term memory (as opposed to long-term memory, which is what hard drives and SSDs store). Demand from artificial intelligence (AI) companies is fueling the shortage as they race to get as much RAM as they can get their hands on. These AI companies are currently building many AI data centers, which need powerful servers to run the AI, and those servers require memory to handle instructions. As a result, demand for memory chips is off the charts. And while that is bad for consumers, who are likely to see higher costs for smartphones and laptops this year due to rising memory prices, its very good for the companies that make memory, like Micron and SanDisk. Why are memory chip companies seeing their prices rise today? Todays rise in memory company stock prices isnt something totally out of the blue. The stock prices of memory companies have been rising for months as news of a memory chip shortage in 2026 spread. However, the stock price jumps in MU and SNDK today seem to be primarily due to a Japanese company called Kioxia. Kioxia is a Japanese flash memory supplier, and today, it reported fiscal third-quarter results. Those results, as noted by Investing.com, slightly exceeded expectations. Q4 guidance, on the other hand, blew past expectations. Most analysts had expected Kioxia to issue Q4 revenue guidance of 648.2 billion (about $4.2 billion). Instead, the company said its Q4 guidance is 890 billion at the midpoint (about $5.8 billion). That is a massive difference and one that many investors see as evidence that demand for memory chips isnt going to slow anytime soon. And when demand is high, prices rise, and memory chip companies make more money. And investors seem to believe that if Kioxia is guiding much higher on revenue than analysts expected, that signals good news for memory chip companies on this side of the Pacific, too. Memory chip stocks have had a great 2026 so far Even before todays Kioxia boost, U.S. memory chip stocks have had a pretty stellar run since the year began. As of yesterdays market close, Micron was up more than 43% year to date, Sandisk was up 152%, Western Digital was up 58%, and Seagate was up 47%. To put those figures into greater context, the stock market they all trade on, the Nasdaq, has actually declined during the same period. As of yesterdays close, the Nasdaq Composite was down about 0.7% for the year so far, according to data from Yahoo Finance. Looking back even furtherover the past 12 monthsthe returns on these same four memory chip companies have been even more eye-popping. In the last year, Seagate has risen 316%, Micron has jumped 336%, Western Digital is up 425%, and Sandisk has risen a staggering 1,609%. During the same period, the NASDAQ Composite has risen 17.4%
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E-Commerce
An Idaho-based beef processing facility is recalling about 22,912 pounds of raw ground beef over concerns that the products might be contaminated with E. coli O145. The company, CS Beef Packers in Kuna, issued the recall following testing by the U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), according to a recall notice published late Wednesday. An FSIS test at a downstream customer showed E. coli O415. This strand of the bacteria is a variation of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). The USDA has labeled the recalled products as high risk, with the potential to cause adverse health consequences or even death. Heres what you need to know about the recalled CS Beef Packers items. What products are affected? The recalled products come in cardboard cases and were produced on January 14, 2026. Each case has a time stamp between 7:03 and 8:32 printed on them and a use-by or freeze-by by date of February 4, 2026. Plus, they bear the establishment number Est. 630 inside the USDAs inspection mark (available on the outside of the case and the clear packaging of each chub). As that expiration date has passed, the FSIS is worried that some products may be in food service freezers. Think you might have some in a freezer? The below cardboard cases of products are included in the recall: Eight 10-pound chubs of Beef, Coarse Ground, 73 L, case code 18601 Four 10-pound chubs of Fire River Farms Classic Beef Fine Ground 73 L, case code 19583 Four 10-pound chubs of Fire River Farms Classic Beef Fine Ground 81 L, case code 19563 You can view images of the product labels here. Where and when was the product sold? According to the FSIS, CS Beef Packers shipped the impacted products to distributors in California, Idaho, and Oregon. However, they were likely then sent to food service locations for further distribution. The recall notice does not include a list of potentially impacted restaurants or food-service establishments. Fast Company has reached out to CS Beef Packers for information on where else the recalled products might have gone. We will update this post if we hear back. What should I do if I have this product? The FSIS states that Foodservice locations are urged not to serve these products. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase. What E. coli symptoms should I look out for? As of Wednesday, there have been no reported illnesses from consuming the beef. However, people can become sick between two and eight days after exposure to E. coli O145. According to the USDA, symptoms include diarrhea (typically bloody) and vomiting. Diagnosis occurs through a stool sample. In most cases, people feel better within a week through treatments like vigorous rehydration, the USDA states. In rare cases, a person might develop a kidney infection known as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). This condition is most likely to occur in children under five-years-old, individuals with weakened immune systems, and older adults. Symptoms of HUS include easy bruising, pallor, and reduced urine output. Get medical help immediately if you experience any of these symptoms.
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E-Commerce
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