Valentine's Day--How Sweet it Is

21,000 florists in the U.S. 1

3,000 greeting-card publishers in the U.S., most of them small or family-owned. 2

70% of men plan to take their sweetheart out to dinner on Valentine's Day. 3

$29 million in cut roses sold in the United States each year. 4

73% of the 546,000 restaurants in the U.S. that are single-location businesses. 5

$36 million in heart-shaped boxes of chocolate sold each Valentine's Day. 6

100,000 pounds per day of its classic Sweethearts Conversation Hearts that Necco produces for 11 months to meet demand. (The 8 billion hearts sell out in six weeks.) 7

3,523 candy stores in the U.S. 8

22,600 specialty jewelers in the U.S. 9

$40 million in box office profits on the No. 1 movie of Valentine's Day weekend 2009­--the remake of Friday the 13th.10

Sources:
1 U.S. Census Bureau
2 Greeting Card Association
3 Discover Card Survey
4 USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
5 National Restaurant Association
6 National Confectioner's Association
7 Necco
8 U.S. Census Bureau
9 Jewelers of America
10 Variety

This article was originally published in the February 2010 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Valentine's Day--How Sweet it Is.