Kraft Seeks High-Tech Packaging To Keep Chocolate Bars from Melting At High Temperatures

By Clay Dillow Posted 08.18.2010 at 4:33 pm 8 Comments

Chocolate meddygarnet/Flickr

While M&Ms have famously claimed that a thin candy shell ensures they melt in your mouth rather than your hand, the same can’t be said for chocolate bars, which seem to melt easily within their own packaging. But if Kraft Foods gets its way, the soft, melted candy bar will soon be a distant memory. The company is actively searching for high-tech packaging that will prevent chocolate bars from melting even at temperatures up to 104 degrees.

How? Well, Kraft isn’t exactly sure. The company has put out a DARPA-like call for ideas from packaging companies for methods to produce chocolate bar wrappers that are neither cost-prohibitive or bulky. Specifically, ““Kraft Foods seeks novel materials or approaches to packaging that can protect single serve chocolate bars from medium term exposure to warm ambient conditions. These products frequently experience multiple cycles of exposure to controlled and uncontrolled climates.”

Essentially, Kraft wants a thin-film wonder-material that doesn’t cost much more than conventional packaging but that minimizes the onset of natural processes even at really high temperatures. Such a material would not only keep chocolate from being a hard-to-consume mess, but could also discourage white “bloom,” that unappetizing discoloration that occurs when chocolate is stored in sunlight.

It sounds like a lofty goal – perhaps even too much so – but it’s one we can get behind. Aside from trimming costs for Kraft, such novel packaging could cut down on waste across the food packaging industry, which is good for everyone. And given the fact that science suggests it may or may not be (but probably is) getting warmer out there, we’ll need something to keep our future post-lunch Milka bars from liquefying before we can get back to our desks.

[Telegraph]

Previous Article: In Quest for Quantum Computers, Researchers Snap First Images of Atoms Captured by Light

Next Article: Researchers Making Freezable Fruit Flies, and Eventually Human Cells That Can Survive Low Temperatures

8 Comments

Link to this comment

Solace

08/18/10 at 4:46 pm

It's nice to have a dream, but that kinda sounds like what this is. Mnm's don't melt at high temperatures because they DO melt at high temperatures; at least the chocolate does, the candy coating does not. I'm fairly certain there is no wrapping you can cover something with that will alter it's content's melting point.

Link to this comment

taysoren

08/18/10 at 4:56 pm

They dont want it to alter the melting point, they just dont want that heat to get inside, thats the point. No one wants to drink their chocolate bar.. well no one except my 2 year old nephew.

Link to this comment

All4it

08/18/10 at 5:11 pm

Kraft should read your previous articles on Phase Change Materials. popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/wax-powered-heat-storage-could-enable-next-gen-directed-energy-weapons

If they could find a lab that could do a wrapper on a nano-scale, then it just might work.

Or better yet, how about phase changing chocolate! It won't melt in your pocket, mouth or desk.

"Yummy, Yummy, Yummy melts in your tummy... but solidifies in your... Ouch!"

Link to this comment

NOM

08/18/10 at 5:43 pm

Just do what the Australians do and make chocolate that melts at a higher temperature.

... except Australian chocolate tastes horrible, so mabe not.

Link to this comment

PenguinMan

08/18/10 at 7:37 pm

More high tech waste. It'll be fine as long as it is biodegradable, not made out of nanotech unknowns or genetically engineered materials.
www.LEDthings.com

Link to this comment

geebob

08/18/10 at 8:03 pm

No one wants to drink their chocolate bar.. well no one except my 2 year old nephew.

And me too!

Link to this comment

rpenri

08/22/10 at 12:34 am

What about that material that an article on here was describing that allows one way travel of energy through the material...

I can't remember what it was called so I can't even search for it on PopSci (if anyone can remember it, please post the link)...

If you use that material, infrared and other heat energy won't be able to travel through the packaging and heat up the chocolate.

Of course, I'm betting a Snickers bar would probably cost $200 just from the expensive packaging.

Popular Tags

Science

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Science

+ More Photo Galleries

June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.