Darra Goldstein

Candy Packaging

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets

By Darra Goldstein

Published 2015

  • About

candy packaging is a twentieth-century innovation. Candy manufactured and sold through the nineteenth century was typically packed in wooden barrels (later cardboard boxes) and shipped to the retailer. Retailers might serve the candy to their customers out of the manufacturer’s container, or they might transfer the goods to more attractive glass jars or counter displays. There was little sense of product differentiation or brand identity.

The rise of consumer advertising and brand awareness in the early twentieth century drove manufactures to begin to use packaging to identify and differentiate their product. A growing consumer awareness of hygiene and fear of “germs” in the 1910s also put pressure on candy makers to begin wrapping their goods. Wrappers were a sign that candy was clean and germ-free (although the conditions in factories where the candy was produced would sometimes suggest otherwise).