Hello All.  I posted this in the wrong forum and I'm not sure how to "Move" it, so I'm re-posting here - still getting familiar with the new site.

In order to keep selling chocolate in the summer, I'm looking for a way to keep the chocolate from melting when customers transport it a short distance to their house (90 degree f in Philadelphia).  Any suggestions for relatively easy and inexpensive ways to do this?  Thanks for the help, John

Hey John,

You can get bags like these:

http://www.4imprint.com/search/thermal/product/106542/Therm-O-Tote-Insulated-Grocery-Bag

Maybe you could do a deposit system so that people can bring them back so you're not just giving away loads of bags. Alternatively, you can always just charge them for a bag. Manoa in Hawaii gives you a bag like this if you order over a certain amount of bars.

John - what's your business called?  It sounds like you're not far from me at all..

updated by @sebastian: 04/30/15 18:22:56

Here is another option that works. Ive heard of folks mailing in these, without ice packs, mid summer with no problems.

http://www.uline.com/BL_1566/Uline-Glamour-Bubble-Mailers

I am in Sydney, Australia and this is probably the hottest continent on Earth.  It's also very larg.  I send chocolate around Australia and indeed to New Zealand and other coutries and this is how I do it. 

http://www.captainchocolate.com.au/hot-weather-shipping/

This follows ask-maki's suggestion and it does work very well.  I get VERY few failures and if I do I just replace.

At markets I use the same idea but one really important concept is to keep the cold air from getting out and new hot air getting in.  To achieve that I pop the chocolate in the foil bag and then I heat seal it on the stand.  Then the air simply can't transverse.

I can't actually buy these bags - at least not cheaply. So I buy rolls of metalized of the material (metalized bubble wrap) that I use for shipping and cut bags out of that and make the bags myself at home before going to the markets.  Then I just have to heat-seal the opening on-site.

I DO keep all of my chocolate in polystyrene boxes on my stall to keep them cool.  And I take these nice cold bags to seal for Customers.

Oh - forgot to say. I keep my chocolate as cold as I reasonably can and load my van just as I leave for the day.  Temperture is always around 15-18C.

Hope this helps - taking care of chocolates and Customers at farmers markets becomes a real artr and I am now pretty good at it!

Colin

Captain Chocolate, Sydney, Australia

 

Hello Sebastian.  It's called Chillings and Chocolate in Upper Darby PA.  What's the name of your store?

No store for me- but i'm about an hour west of you.  I'll need to stop by sometime!

Out towards Lancaster and Litiz?  I buy my chocolate from Weaver Nut in Ephrata.  Look forward to meeting you.

Oh i know the weaver nut folks very well - small world it is!

Colin - I love your packaging information page for customers!  If I were to order from you, I'd feel very appreciated, and that you truly care about the quality of your product and my experience.  Well done, Sir!

 

I've received samples from TCHO that had to travel from the West to the East US coast, and they were packaged in a Uline foil backed bubble bag (5x fast) with 2 cold packs inside.  Are yous guys saying that just the foil bubble bag would have sufficed, no cold packs neccesary?  Any experiences with this?

https://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/forums/tech-help-tips-tricks-techniques/4705/summer-shipping-tips-tricks