Today, a lolly is usually defined as a hard candy eaten from a stick. Lollies come in many shapes, sizes and flavors, and are loved by people all over the world. The history of lollies and where their names originally came from are controversial, but the story began thousands of years ago, perhaps from a caveman.
In many civilizations throughout history, eating sugary substances from sticks has always been a practice. Presumably, the first example of this situation is that cavemen used sticks to collect and eat honey from beehives. The next slightly advanced development of this approach is believed to be in ancient times.
The Chinese, Arabs and Egyptians used honey to preserve fruits and nuts. This mixture will be made into a stick, which hardens over time, making it easier to eat. In the Middle Ages, nobles ate boiled sugar with sticks. At that time, sugar had not been mass-produced, making it a very expensive and luxurious treat that only the rich could enjoy. Soon after the end of the Middle Ages, this situation changed with the advancement of technology and the massive planting and production of sugarcane.
Records show that in England in the 17th century, early versions of lollies as we know them were sold by street vendors throughout London. These sweets are made of soft candies, because a machine that automatically inserts sticks has not yet been invented. Although these candies are different from modern healthiest lollies in texture and appearance, the concept is the same: a delicious sugary snack that can be eaten effortlessly, and adults and children alike.
There is a lot of debate about who made the hard candy on the stick first, the origin of the name lolly, and who was the first to invent the machine to produce them. What we can be sure of is that in the first half of the 1900s, different people in factories across the United States helped shape the lollies we know.
In the 1880s, George Smith of New Haven, Connecticut, observed a chocolate company that was making chocolate bars and caramel. He found this to be an interesting idea and decided to apply this technology to his own hard candy company.
In 1908, Smith named these candies Lolly Pops after the local racehorse, and applied for a trademark on the name. Because there was a record of candy called this name in the past, he was awarded this trademark a few years later. Then in 1931, Lolly Pops officially got its name. The Bradley Smith Company began to make candies by hand, but in order to meet the demand, they created their own patented machine to automate the process. These early lollies cost one cent each.
Another confectionery company in Connecticut also has a record. The company and other companies also produced products similar to modern healthiest lollies at about the same time. It is said that this happened almost by accident. The staff will stir the candies with wooden sticks when they are cooked, and the candies will accumulate on the sticks throughout the day. At the end of every day, there will be a lot of "candy bars" left, and employees will take them home to the children. Soon, they began to sell these candy bars to the public.
Also in 1908, the Racine Candy Machine Company in Racine, Wisconsin was making hard candy bars. They created the Racine automatic suction cup machine, which puts hard candy on the end of the stick. Soon after, in 1912, Samuel Born invented the birth sucker machine in California, which can automatically insert a stick into a hard candy. This invention was widely praised in San Francisco.
No matter who is really the first person to put hard candies on sticks, all these efforts help to create modern healthiest lollies, which are one of the most popular candies in the world.