Candy Professor

Please Don’t Eat the Wrapper

October 15, 2009 at 11:54 am 2 comments

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

Entry filed under: Ingredients, Packaging, WWII to 1960s. Tags: aroma, candy package, chemistry, Monsanto.