The cost of love
Candy, flower businesses prepare for Valentine\\\'s Day
With Valentine’s Day just a few days off, local flower and candy shops are gearing up for the onslaught of last-minute business that typically accompanies the holiday.
And shoppers should be prepared to pay a little more to treat their sweetie this year.
Increased tariffs on some imports including flowers and candy, along with a skyrocketing cocoa bean market, may mean higher prices for consumers.
Since taking office, President Trump has implemented substantial increases in tariffs on imports from various countries. By the end of 2025, the average tariff rate went from 2.4% to 16.8%, marking the highest level in nearly a century. The increase has generated record revenue for the government but also led to higher prices on some essential goods.
Tariffs on candy and chocolate products imported into the United States can range from 5% to more than 25%. For example, Swedish gummy candy may incur a 5.6% duty, while chocolate from Belgium or Germany can face tariffs of 10% to 18.6%.
Candy businesses that import sweets are feeling the pinch, and in some cases have been forced to raise prices.
Debbie Sargent owns Pink House Chocolates in Finleyville. She’s been gearing up for a busy week preparing their “huge Valentine’s Day sellers” – strawberry cordials.
“We want to keep those as fresh as possible,” she said in an interview last week. “It will get crazy … We’ll be making hundreds; every day we’ll be making them.”
Sargent said prices will be a little bit higher this year, “but we’re not anticipating that it’s going to affect anything badly. People expect to pay a little bit more for a better product.”
Barb Cyprowski, owner of Cyprowski Candy Company and Blossom and Blooms in North Strabane Township, said Valentine’s Day is the company’s second most popular holiday, trailing only Christmas.
“It’s just a constant adjustment of our numbers because it’s a very short window,” she said. “It’s not something that people order a month in advance. They’re ordering it days in advance. We look at our year prior, and we adjust for our current year, and we just keep counting. We count every single day to make sure we have enough strawberries coming in and we have enough of all of our raw materials.”
Bill Sarris, president and CEO of Sarris Candies in Canonsburg, said the cocoa bean market has skyrocketed, noting the price of chocolate is about three times more than it was during the pandemic. But his candy company has not increased its prices.
“We bit the bullet. We didn’t raise prices, not yet. Not this year anyway,” Sarris said. “Through Easter of 2026, there’s no price changes.”
Like Cyprowski, Steve Neubauer, president and general manager of Neubauer’s Flowers in Uniontown, starts to get ready for February holiday in December.
“We started placing our orders right around Christmas,” he said.
Neubauer said the company absorbed the costs affected by tariffs at first.
“We absorbed them ’til we saw they were going to be permanent, then we adjusted prices a little bit,” he said.
DuMuth Florists in Connellsville is also prepared for the holiday rush, ensuring they have enough vases, ribbons and boxes available as well as flowers and candy.
“You have to make sure you have the right containers available,” said Deb LoNigro, who owns the business with her husband, Michael. “You have to get extra vases in for the bulk orders. We make sure we have heart boxes in for chocolate and we have a lot of stuffed animals and balloons. That covers all of our bases.”
LoNigro said her business hasn’t been impacted much by tariffs.
“I haven’t quite noticed anything with tariffs with our flower deliveries,” she said. “They didn’t tack on anything for me at this point.”
Harold Smith, owner of L&M Flower Shop in Canonsburg, is accepting of the increased cost of doing business.
“Some of the products that come in, come in from other countries and the tariffs have affected us, so the prices have to go up,” Smith said. “No matter what industry you’re in, the prices have gone up since the tariffs have been there.
“I’m not complaining. I still have business and I’m happy for it,” he said.