I’m eating chocolates and it’s bittersweet. I had been craving “box o’ chocolates” (as opposed to the swank organic, fair-trade, single-origin stuff I usually eat) and grabbed a box of Pot of Gold the other day. They’re getting hard to find.
The Pot of Gold brand was developed in the 1920s by a confectionery company in Halifax, Nova Scotia called Moir’s. Moir’s had started in 1815 as a bakery, but by 1873 was exclusively making candy and chocolates. Moir’s was actually the first company to come up with a mixed assortment box, and the Pot of Gold was an instant hit, becoming and remaining the best-selling boxed chocolate in Canada for decades. In most of the Maritimes, it wasn’t Christmas without at least one box under the tree, although you might also find rival Ganong as well.
Moir’s was sold to Nabisco brands in 1967 and in 1975, moved across the harbour from their location on Argyle Street in Halifax, to a modernized plant in Dartmouth. Hershey acquired the Nabisco confectionery division in 1987 and expanded the Pot of Gold line to a variety of different assortments.