Posts filed under ‘Packaging’
Fresher in Cellophane
Oooh...that candy looks good!
This 1958 Du Pont ad declares: “Candy’s at its best in Cellophane!”
And it was no exaggeration. From the 1930s through the 1960s, Cellophane was the very best wrapping material for candy. Cellophane was transparent and impermeable. This made it the ideal wrapping material for Americans who were worried about germs but who were also very picky shoppers. Cellophane meant they could see what they were getting, but still be confident that “germs” were kept out.
From the very beginning, candy makers loved cellophane. Some industry observers dated the birth of the modern candy trade to 1923, the year Du Pont began manufacturing Cellophane in the U.S. Cellophane revolutionized the packaging of candies. Individually wrapped candies sparkled, like glowing gems, a huge leap from the old dull waxed papers. Cellophane could be make into transparent bags for bulk candies, the whole package a tantalizing window on the candy inside. For the high-end market, cellophane covered and sealed fancy boxed candies, guaranteeing hygienic freshness. The candy buying consumers certainly found these qualities appealing. But Cellophane also helped the candy seller. Candy wrapped in Cellophane would maintain its freshness and visual appeal for longer periods, so merchants worried less about old goods. And wrapped candies could be sold as a “self-service” item to be stocked on modern grocery store shelves, which would mean fewer expensive clerks to serve the customers.
1936: “Delicious hard candy, Can NOW be kept handy!”
“New, clean wrap is a sweet idea!”
Ads from the 1930s emphasized cleanliness and convenience. The individually wrapped candies in these ads will be happy in a pocket or handbag, with no worry for sticky messes. The girl peering over the candy bin seems ready to reach in for a handfull. There is no clerk standing over her waiting for her order. She can just help herself! Compare this image of the open candy bins to the image of a 1900s candy store in Ye Olde Candy Shoppe.
1937: “Each piece always clean, never sticky, easy to carry!”
Many of these ads feature sweet little girls. But of course: little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice,” and what is nicer or sweeter than fresh candy!
Here’s adorable Shirley Temple pouring out a candy dish in a 1954 ad.
In the 1950s ads, Du Pont emphasized the official line of the NCA, “Candy is Delicious Quick-Energy Food.” The advantage of Cellophane is to keep the candy fresh. In this and the ad at the top of the page, the candy is wrapped in Cellophane bag. Compare this to the 1930s ads, which suggest the little girls might be choosing individual pieces of candy. By the 1950s, the children’s candy market had moved away from little penny candies (see Langston Hughes Sings the Blues for Penny Candy).
1955: “You can be sure candy is fresh and clean–and you can see to choose the kind you like best–when you buy CANDY IN CELLOPHANE.”
Is the “you” who buys the candy the mother? She’s probably the one who cares that the candy is fresh and clean. Or is it the kids? They can choose the kind they like best. The jelly beans they are holding are pre-packaged in the Cellophane bag. It’s a pretty big sack, not likely to be purchased by a child alone. Candy here is something mother buys for her children, not something they go out to buy for themselves.
Related Posts:
Taking Candy from a Soldier
U.S. soldiers in the nineteen-teens were distinguished by many virtues: their bravery, their manliness, and above all, for their craving for sweets.
Rations in the Army around 1916 included bread, potatoes, bacon and beans or fresh meat, cheese, coffee, tea, butter, milk, sugar, an orange or an apple, pepper, salt, and 1/4 pound sugar per day. Given such blandly nutritious fare, it wasn’t a surprise that the boys serving in the military would be glad of some candy.
In a report on military morale in 1917, Dr. Naismith, a profesor of physical education at University of Kansas, encouraged gifts of candy to accompany letters from home, in preference of “sob letters and night gowns,” typical items that Naismith called “the most worrying and useless things the boys on the border last summer received from home.” As Dr. Naismith noted, “his appetite for sweets, too, is very keen. The army ration, wholesome and nourishing, hasn’t many trimmings, so candy always is warmly welcomed by the boys.” .
The call for candy did not go unanswered. In August 1917, Wallace and Co. of Brooklyn began advertising the “Service Package” to retail dealers. This box of confection was “designed and packed for the boys” and meant to be purchased on subscription: the customer would pay, and the retailer would send out the package on a regular basis. This would be an easy sale: “We know there is nothing a soldier or sailor on active duty appreciates more than candy. His chances of buying candy for himself are very small, therefore such a gift, delivered by Uncle Sam’s Postal Department, is a most welcome addition to the service rations and a cheerful remembrance from home.” And what would the happy soldier receive in his Service Package? One package each of lemon drops, wild cherry drops, and broken candy, two rations of eating chocolate, and two packages of chewing gum, all wrapped in a box covered with inspirational images of soldiers at salute, cannons, explosions, and the American eagle.
Even before the U.S. joined the European war, the soldiers’ love of candy was a common theme. By 1915 there were reports that “one of the finest old American slang terms is about to succumb to the stern demands of war.” Where Americans used to say “taking candy from a baby,” now it would be more accurate to describe that tearful tug of war as “taking candy from a soldier.” One pundit went so far as to suggest a novel military strategy based on candy: “Put a chocolate statue of the Kaiser in the square at Berlin and our men will take it in a week” (attributed to Sir John French, British Army Inspector-General).
By 1916, confectioners were viewing the impending war with a certain optimism, as a huge marketing opportunity:
We know that a country at war does not lose its desire for confectionery. The European war has taught us however that huge standing armies consume huge quantities of candy, and it is a fact that thousands upon thousands of men who seldom if ever eat candy before, begin to crave for sweetmeats after they feel the rigors of active army life.
Before World War I, candy had been seen primarily as the province of lovers and children. No longer: the experience of war would make candy a man’s game. The market for candy created by the war was the theme of the 1916 address by R. F. Mackenzie, president of the National Confectioners Association (NCA), at the annual convention:
The world must have its sweets. As the wise man has said, ’Candy’s fair in love and war.’ The lover demands his package of bon-bons with which to propitiate his sweetheart; and the veteran of the tranches requests his strength-renewing tablet of chocolate.
As U.S. soldiers returned to civilian life in the roaring 1920s, their candy appetite propelled an enormous boom in candy invention, production, and sales. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the American candy business of today–and especially the primacy of the candy bar–is the legacy of the dough-boys ’appetite for sweets.’
Sources: “The Chocolate Soldier,” International Confectioner October 1915, p. 36; “Preparedness,” International Confectioner June 1916, p. 39; R.F. Mackenzie speech to NCA, 10 May 1916, International Confectioner May 1916, p. 41-42. Wallace and Company “Service Package” ad, International Confectioner August 1917, p. 14-15. Dr. Naismith quotation, International Confectioner June 1917, 61.
Pez and the 1950s Children’s Candy Market
Candy Land observed a moment of silence on December 15, 2009, to mark the passing of Curtis Allina, presumed inventor of the Pez character dispenser. The first Pez marketed for children were full-bodied likenesses of Santa and a robot, in 1955. Pez dispensers were not the first or the only candy toy novelty. But no other candy toy has approached the brilliance of the Pez Head, in its simple appeal and infinite variety.
When Pez came to the U.S. from Austria in the early 1950s, it was as an adult peppermint sold in a suave dispenser that resembled James Bond’s gold cigarette lighter, and shared its sleek cosmopolitan gleam. Such trifles were more successful in Vienna than in Vermont, though, and Pez stumbled in the U.S. market. Then Allina, or someone working for him, had the idea to re-package the mints as fruit-flavored children’s candies. But why did they imagine that marketing candy to children might be a winning bet?
The fact was, no one much noticed those little candy munching kiddies before the 1950s.
Oh, the kids bought candy, to be sure. One or two pennies at a time, hoarded and carefully extracted from a sticky pocket after spending an hour loitering in front of the candy displays. Hardly the most promising customer base. The penny candy trade was always at the edges of the candy business. No respectable adult with more than five or ten cents to rub together would bother with the little shops where kids hung out and clerks spent the day swatting away grubby hands and dripping noses. In articles on cost accounting and business-building published in the candy journals, bean-counters encouraged candy makers and candy sellers to give up the penny trade: it just didn’t pay.
World War II pretty much killed off penny candy. There was sugar rationing, and much candy production was diverted to supply the troops with their requisite sweets. Candy ads from the period encourage Americans to be patient if they can’t find their favorite candies in stock, shorages were just a part of the war effort. Whatever by way of sugar, chocolate and the like that was left for the domestic market went to the manufacture of higher priced, more profitable goods. But of course, there were still children, and they still were going to be eating candy.
Around 1947, as the war wound down and things started getting back to normal, candy makers began looking around and noticing all those candy-hungry kids. Things were different, now, to be sure. Kids weren’t getting pennies the way they used to. The unwrapped penny goods were, in any case, gone. And mothers were more concerned both with regulating the money their kids had to spend, and with exercising more control over their children’s candy habits. At the same time, modern ideas about advertising, marketing, and packaging encouraged candy makers and sellers to start thinking more creatively about their customers and how to build their business.
At first, the idea was just to draw the attention of children: what price? what sort of wrapper? what sort of display? And to soothe the mothers: this candy is wholesome! this candy is clean!
But by 1952, the idea of a distinct children’s market had begun to inspire amazing innovations in promotion and sales which far surpassed tentative explorations of the late 1940s. A trade article on “Candy Packaging for the Small Fry” suggests the imaginative range of possibilities for packaging: There were “Play Money Pops” with cardboard coins; “Wild West Pops” with small Western toys; “Tasty Pops” which promised an educational candy experience with their new “Wheel-a-Word combination spelling game and bank that teaches children how to spell, and can be used for hoarding pennies as well.” And then there were the packages themselves: fancy boxes that would serve for jewelry or a picture frame when the candy was done; musical drums for pounding or, for the young ladies, drum-shaped pocketbooks filled with candy; and decorated glass tumblers featuring bunnies and sports themes. A precursor to Pez might be the “Clicker Bird”: a metal bird with a long neck and moveable head filled with candy. An extra notable feature was the built-in clicker: “Children love them, and the clickers are guaranteed to drive mothers to distraction.”
Candy filled toys were common and popular in the mid 1950s; if you wanted to sell in the children’s market, you needed a novelty, an extra, something to stand out and add to the candy itself. The Pez dispensers were part of a wave of innovation in children’s candy packaging. You’ll still find many novelty toy packages in the children’s candy rack at the drug store today. But Pez does stand out, as an idea that allowed for infinite variation in the same familiar package, appealing to new generations of children while gripping the adult imagination as well.
Sources: Margalit Fox, “Curtis Allina Dies at 87; He Put the Heads on Pez”, New York Times 5 January 2010; B.G. Collins, “Let’s Sell Candy to the Children,” Confectioners Journal June 1947, p. 35-36; Ann Marie Lawler, “Candy Packaging for the Small Fry,” Confectioners Journal May 1952, p. 25-26.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ionan/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Candies For Trick or Treat in the 1950s
Halloween is coming. Trick-or-Treat and … CANDY!
It’s hard to believe, but back in the 1950s, Halloween wasn’t really a candy holiday.
Before the 1940s, most Americans had never heard of trick-or-treat. And as trick-or-treat caught on after World War II, treats were various and mostly not candy. Typical treats included cookies, popcorn balls, nuts, coins, and also jelly beans and candy corn, loose and unwrapped. And of course the occasional rock.
Life Magazine doesn’t have any ads for candy that mention trick-or-treat before 1953. In the October 26, 1953 issue, Fleer Dubble Bubble ran an ad that said “Treat the Kids this Halloween with Dubble Bubble.” The accompanying drawing features a woman handing gum to a pack of costumed kids. There’s a little black cat sitting at her feet. Think “Bewitched” but brunette.
Mars, Inc. was another of the very early manufacturers promoting candy for trick-or-treat. The October 25, 1954 issue of Life features an ad for Milky Way bars promoting the “Haunting Flavor” of its “three layer treat.” The image shows a ghost eating a Milky Way. Fleer Dubble Bubble also ran an ad in the same issue with a masked trick or treater ringing a doorbell, a clever visual reference to the early “gangster” origins of trick-or-treat.
The association of candy with Halloween was not obvious to everyone, though. Other products pitched trick-or-treat as an occasion to spread their own kind of goodness. The October 25, 1954 issue of Life included a Kellogg’s ad for cereal Snack-Paks that reads “Sweet treats for little kids!” and shows a woman handing a box of Frosted Flakes to the Trick or Treaters. In 1959, the October 26 issue featured trick-or-treat theme ads for Hawaiian Punch (“treats for thirsty tricksters”), Kool Aid (“loot for the trick or treaters”), and my own personal favorite for weird Halloween tie-in, Dutch Masters Cigars (costumed kids hold a cigar box out to dad: “No trick…all treat”).
Anything could be a Halloween treat. And candy advertised around Halloween might not even make a Halloween reference. In 1954 and later years, Brach’s ran an ad for chocolate peanuts which made no mention of the season or the holiday. Mars ran an ad for the Mars bar in the October 29,1956 issue, but it is a general ad that makes no reference to Halloween.
Most candy in the 1950s, even if it was advertised for Halloween, didn’t have any special packaging or wrapping. The first ad I’ve found for specially packaged trick-or-treat candy bar miniatures is from Curtiss, in 1960: “the goblins ‘ll get you if you don’t treat ‘em right!” Mom is holding a bowl with assorted Baby Ruth and Butterfinger bars. They are “miniature” compared to regular, sure, but kids in those days were getting a “mini” about three times the size of today’s Halloween treat size!
(CORRECTION Oct 15, 2010: I have since found ads much earlier mini-bars advertised for Halloween, as this from 1951 (Hershey’s “mini,” “small size” Baby Ruth and Butterfinger [Curtiss]. Were there others in the 1950s? When did the mini size become wide spread?).
I found these pictures of some of the earliest candy packages that refer explicitly to trick-or-treat, both from the mid 1950s:
This Heath package is from 1955. It is a regular 24 box of Heath bars, with a special sleeve that could be removed if the merchandise stayed on the shelf after the holiday. This kind of multi-purpose package suggests that Halloween wasn’t sending candy flying off the shelf.
This hexagonal carton is an award winning package distributed by the Sierra Candy Company in 1956. Its terribly clever: ears sick out the sides for a comic effect, while a menacing toothsome grin and googly eyes offer a peek a the candy inside.
Sources: Life Magazine courtesy of Google Books (tip: to see a larger image of the ad, click on the single page view in the Google viewer after clicking my link); Confectioners Journal Sept. 1955 p. 24, April 1956 p. 36.
Please Don’t Eat the Wrapper
By the 1940s, advances in the candy industry were closely tied to the work of scientists and engineers working in industrial chemistry labs. Companies like Merck, Pfizer, and Monsanto were frequent advertisers in trade journals.Pfizer emphasized the uniformity and purity of its citric acid, cream of tartar, tartaric acid, and sodium citrate “to give good taste characteristics…to assure the product uniformity and product purity.” Merck placed ads for citric acid to “bring out the goodness of a well-made confection.” Merck also encouraged candy makers, newly interested in fortification, to choose Merck Food-Industry Vitamins with regularity, and also promoted its “pure vitamins for the food industry: Vitamin B1, Riboflavin, Niacin, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).”
Monsanto Chemicals and Plastics offered the widest variety of products for the candy manufacturer. For candy flavor, there was Ethavan, a trade formulation of Ethyl Vanillin, (artificial vanilla flavor). Ethavan offered “distinctive flavor, and an aroma that is more pronounced, more intriguing, more pleasing… unusual staying power… more economical.” But Monsanto wasn’t just in the candy. Monsanto Plastics division offered “thermo-plastic coating” to wrap goods, and Vuepak, a “sparkling” material that could be fashioned into plastic boxes perfect for protecting and displaying candy.Vuepak was for products with “taste appeal, eye appeal, interesting design, texture of freshness. If it’s worth looking at…put it in Vuepak.”
It was inevitable that the folks in the chemistry division should get together with the folks in the packaging department and come up with something entirely novel. In 1949, Monsanto announced “packages with aromas to match their contents” to be provided to manufacturers of candy, cookies and ice cream. Vanillin, ethavan, and coumarin, which had been developed as flavor and aroma enhancers, were incorporated into paper pulp or pressed into finished paper. It was “tasty” packaging, for a reasonable cost.
Whether this became popular with consumers is not known. It seems risky, especially for candy bars one might eat in a darkened theater. There was, one hopes, some distinction between the taste of the candy and the taste of the cardboard package.
Source: “Packages with Aromas to Match their Contents” Confectioners Journal Nov 1949 p. 41
La Cellophane
In a 1925 advertising pamphlet, the newly formed DuPont Cellophane company extolled its new product, “DuPont Cellophane: The New Super Wrap”:
…as transparent as glass…its smooth surface and lustrous gloss enhance both color and form. … It is germ-proof, odorless and odor-proof, and will preserve freshness and prevent contamination.
Most importantly, Cellophane promised to improve sales:
a wrap of Cellophane will permit a clear view of your product so that it can advertise and sell itself at the same time protecting it from handling, dust, germs, bacteria, etc. It is estimated that 90% of all merchandise in the retail store is bought through appeal to the eye. A wrap of Cellophane cannot fail to add materially to the salability of your product through its appearance alone.
DuPont listed 18 industries and products that were using Cellophane to advantage, including tobacco, meats, drugs, and cosmetics. Number one was candy and confectionery.
Cellophane was an exciting product in the 1920s. Books and pamphlets were published extolling its uses not only in wrapping and preserving goods, but in crafts as well. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company commissioned a study investigating the impact of such transparent wrappers on various industries, including the candy industry.
Whitman, of “Whitman’s Chocolate Sampler Box,” was the first Cellophane customer in America. Transparent wrapping had enormous benefits for candy sales. Customers liked knowing that the candy was protected, and they being able to see what they were getting. One candy retailer reported:
As an indication of what transparent wrapping will do in increasing and maintaining the sale of the product, last summer we took an item which was slowly but surely losing consumer acceptance, packaged it in a transparent bag, and almost immediately our sales increased.
DuPont didn’t invent cellophane. A Swiss engineer discovered the material in 1908. As as early as 1914, “La Cellophane” was available to U.S. candy makers, imported from France by Franz Euler and Company and advertised in the major candy trade journals.
The earliest cellophanes were waterproof, but not impervious to water vapor. This was a problem for candy, but DuPont created a new moisture-proof formulation in 1927, and candy wrapping was never the same. Not every candy seller in the 1920s could see that candy was on the brink of a revolution. When asked about what impact cellophane was likely to have on the candy business, one manufacturer opined:
I believe that transparent packaging will continue to grow in favor. HoweverI do not believe that they will ever entirely take the place of candies packed in bulk.
But by the 1950s, cellophane was everywhere. DuPont had expanded its own production, and others had started manufacturing the material. DuPont was the major player, though. The Justice Department went so far as to bring a lawsuit against DuPont in 1947 charging a monopoly on wrapping materials, the famous cellophane anti-trust case. While DuPont’s plans for expansion were held up by the litigation, the company took the extraordinary step of encouraging their competitors to meet the cellophane demand.
It is true that in a few “nostalgia” shops, candy can still be bought in bulk. But clear plastic wrappers are so common today, we don’t even notice them. Many new strong, transparent and flexible materials have become available for candy packaging. DuPont stopped making cellophane in 1986. But it was cellophane that started the revolution.
Sources:
Du Pont Cellophane: The New Super Wrap. (New York: DuPont Cellophane Co., 1925);Transparent wrappings as a sales aid for food products; a report on the experiences of 29 companies. (New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Policyholders Service Bureau, 1932);Craft with “Cellophane” cellulose film.(New York : Du Pont Cellophane Co., 1935); The History of Cellophane, by Mary Bellis at http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/Cellophane.htm
More: For an extended discussion of the rapid rise of wrappers in candy manufacture between 1914 and 1917, see my article The Candy Prophylactic: Danger, Disease, and Children’s Candy around 1916, in particular the section titled “Covers and Wrappings: the Rise of Hygenic Candy”
The New York Times obituary of Karl Prindle, who invented the waterproofing formula for Du Pont, tells another part of the cellophane story.
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