The real story here lies in the mechanization of chocolate bar wrapping machinery. David is correct that most bars have a taper to them and when running bars through a commercial wrapping machine, the bars are levated from the infeed conveyor up into the foil and label already cut from rol stock as part of the machine's operation. The bar and wrapping material is then forced upward through a box to initiate the folding. If the bar was introduced to the foil and paper 'bottom up' the taper would not accept the folding action correctly. When folding by hand anything goes but when it comes to machinery this is the only way to achieve a tight and form fitting wrap.

Thanks,

--
Jim Greenberg, Co-President
Union Confectionery Machinery Company
Jim@unionmachinery.com
www.unionmachinery.com

Lucky for us, our chocolate bars go into boxes, so the slope doesn't matter.

In fact, wrapping the bars "updside down" helps us, because our bar boxes are translucent, and having a very smooth surface actually works to our benefit, as opposed to being able to see the pattern of the bar as it's pressed through the foil when it's wrapped.

It's because most tablet molds have a pyramid slope from wide to narrow (narrow being the front). If you wrap this way you'll have to invert the outside label and your customer will have to flip the bar over to open it, defeating the purpose. We experimented with this when we started and it made wrapping more difficult and customers thought the bars looked "backwards" when they were wrapped. I guess it depends on your mold.

Maybe its done that way commercially by the big guys because its easier for foil wrapping machines to fold against a flat back? And then its just become the norm - no idea.

But its a valid point.

I've never understood why almost everyone does this. Utterly weird.

The other day, I was opening a peer's chocolate bar to sample it, and as I unwrapped the foil I found myself looking at the back of the bar (which was full of bubbles and swirls).  I had an "AH HA!"  moment and went over to my secret chocolate stash of other bars, and pulled all of them out.

Every single bar (including my own) were wrapped wrong!  EVERY SINGLE BAR of the 75 I EXAMINEDWAS OPENED TO EXPOSE THE BACK OF THE BAR FIRST!

HOW SILLY!!!  

As chocolatiers, we go through all kinds of trouble molding our bars into pretty shapes and designs, only to have our customers inevitably open them up and look at the back - the one place where there is NO pretty shape or design!

EVERYBODY HAS BEEN WRAPPING THEIR BARS WRONG!!!

The only time I've ever seen someone open the entire bar (people usually only tear open the very end to break off a piece), is when the bar is being evaluated or photographed, and in those cases it doesn't matter which way they're wrapped because the whole wrapper is coming off anyway.

As of now, I've directed my team to start wrapping our bars so that when that little corner is torn open,they see the design first!

Opinions?

 

 

updated by @brad-churchill: 04/09/15 06:05:02