St. Joseph, Mo. ? The packages will arrive by Valentine’s Day, full of rich confections from Missouri with the added sweetness of family nostalgia.

In Denver, Wichita, Kan., and New York City, the late Gene McBee’s grown-up grandchildren will unwrap their gift boxes of Cherry Mash. With a single bite, the confection of chocolate, peanuts and intense cherry cream will carry them to simpler places, like the western Kansas communities where their grandmother Gene bought one Cherry Mash each week.

It’s the sentimental constancy of St. Joseph-made Cherry Mash — the same red-and-white wrapper, same recipe, same vivid flavor across all of Gene McBee’s nine decades — that moved McBee’s daughter Cecilia Green to send the Valentine’s gifts to her kids.

“Cherry Mash has a special place for us, because there is nothing else like that flavor,” Green, 61, said.

Cherry Mash, created in 1918, is promoted as the third-oldest continuously made U.S. confection.

For Cherry Mash magnate Barry Yantis, it’s voluntary testimonials like Green’s that inspire his family-owned enterprise, Chase Candy Co., as it moves to a new factory in St. Joseph.

Yantis’ father and uncle bought the company from the Chase family in 1944. The company’s roots go to 1876, when Dr. George Washington Chase opened a fruit and produce store in St. Joseph to supplement his income as a physician.

Chase’s teenage son, Ernest, persuaded the father to hire expert candy makers and turn the store’s second floor into a confectionary.

By 1926, Chase was turning out more than 500 candy lines.

Dean Jones inspects the cherry cream centers of Cherry Mash candy bars before they enter a chocolate-coating machine at the Chase Candy Co. in St. Joseph, Mo. The candy bar, introduced in 1918, is promoted as the third-oldest continuously made U.S. confection.

Then as now, the most popular was the Cherry Mash. It remains the nation’s best-selling cherry candy bar.

Yantis said his company was too small to afford renting shelf space at most big stores. Chase’s Web site helps boost sales nationally, to more than $2 million last year.

Yantis is proud of a deal his father struck long ago with Wal-Mart Stores founder Sam Walton, a fellow Missourian who put Cherry Mash on many of his retail chain’s shelves.

Yantis says he will sell a lot of Cherry Mash for Valentine’s Day.