A Salem Sweet Shop's Claim To Fame: The Origin Of Chocolate Easter Bunnies

SALEM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — A classic Easter treat has a Massachusetts connection. The founder of Harbor Sweets in Salem is the grandson of the man credited with making chocolate Easter bunnies popular in the U.S.

“When Robert Strohecker came to America in the late 1800s, he brought [the] chocolate bunny with him,” which earned him the title of the “father” of the chocolate Easter bunny business, said Harbor Sweets Senior Sales Manager Laura Silvestro.

In 1890, Strohecker made “a five-foot tall chocolate rabbit that he put in the window of a department store for everyone to see” in Reading, Pennsylvania, said Marketing Manager Erin Clarke. “He decided to create a rabbit with a surprise in every bite.”

Decades later, his grandson Ben Strohecker set out to make “the best chocolates in the world, regardless of cost" from his kitchen in Marblehead, and shortly after Harbor Sweets officially began in a waterfront brick factory in Salem in 1973.

The company is women-led today and employs around 100 people. Their most important focus is “celebrating the sweetest moments in life with our loyal customers.”

And now, Harbor Sweets' chocolate bunnies are closer to five inches, not five feet, tall, and they are still hand-made.

The flavors vary from dark and milk chocolate to white chocolate, and some Easter bunnies have pecans, almonds, or caramel in them.

The shop has typically sold around two thousand chocolate bunnies every Easter season. And after that holiday is over, it's onto the next: Mother's Day.

Harbor Sweets said they are trying their best to keep prices low despite rising cocoa costs due to crop problems from poor climate and crop diseases in West Africa, which is where the majority of cocoa is produced globally.

WBZ NewsRadio's Chaiel Schaffel reports.

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