Custom Candy Bar Boxes
Custom candy bar packaging sized to your mold, from 100 units. A printed sleeve over a foil-wrapped bar, a tuck carton for a thicker bar, or flow wrap for a line — with the inner layer doing the food contact and the outer doing the selling.
Two layers, and only one of them touches the chocolate
- Inner
- Aluminum foil, metallized film or foil-paper laminate; food contact grade
- Outer
- Printed paper sleeve 100–170 gsm, tuck carton 16–20 pt, or printed flow-wrap film
- Sizes
- Built to the wrapped bar; standard molds 45 g to 100 g
Get a price for Candy Bar Boxes
Send the size and quantity — we reply the same working day with a price, a dieline and a date. Artwork optional at this stage.
- Free dielineThe flat drawing comes with the quote, before you commit.
- Proof before pressNothing is printed until you have seen it laid on the dieline.
- Die kept for reordersTooling is paid once. Every reorder skips straight to press.
- Quoted in four marketsUS, UK, Canada and Australia, in the delivery currency.
The inner layer, which is a barrier not a wrapper
Chocolate takes on odors, blooms in warmth and goes stale in air, so the layer against it does real work: aluminum foil, a metallized film, or a foil-paper laminate. It is usually plain, it is folded or sealed around the bar, and the customer sees it for a second on opening.
Printing on that inner layer is possible and mostly unnecessary — a single foil color or a blind emboss reads as more considered than four-color print at that moment. What the layer must not be is paper alone, which stops nothing.
| Foil inner, printed sleeve | The craft-bar standard: barrier inside, paper outside |
|---|---|
| Flow wrap, printed film | One layer doing both jobs; the line format, fastest to run |
| Foil inner, tuck carton | For a thick or filled bar that needs structure |
| Rigid box, foil-wrapped bar | Gift and seasonal formats |
Sleeve or carton, decided by the bar
A flat molded bar in a foil wrap needs no structure, so a printed paper sleeve is enough — cheap, fast to apply by hand, and the format almost every craft chocolate maker uses. A thick bar, a filled bar, or one with an irregular mold is fragile at the edges and wants a carton around it so nothing snaps in a box of stock.
The sleeve is sized to the wrapped bar, not the bar, and the wrap adds a millimeter or two on each face. Send us a finished wrapped bar rather than a bare one, or the sleeve will be tight on the first production run.
Chocolate bars are usually stacked flat in transit. A sleeve that is even slightly loose slides along the bar and ends up off-center in the box.
What the front panel has to carry
A bar is a small canvas and most of it is legally spoken for. Design the required text first and the artwork into what is left, not the other way round.
- The cacao percentage and origin, which is what a specialty buyer reads first.
- The weight, which for a bar is a small number people compare closely.
- Allergens — milk, nuts, soy — legible, because chocolate is a high-risk category.
- A batch code area for inkjet after print.
- The ingredient list, which on a two-ingredient bar is a selling point and should not be hidden.
Heat, and what happens in a warehouse
Chocolate blooms above about 75 F and the packaging cannot prevent it, but it can make it worse or better. A tight foil inner slows temperature change; a loose paper sleeve does nothing either way; a dark printed outer sitting in sunlight absorbs heat.
What packaging can do is survive the bloom without looking damaged, which is why matte and uncoated papers are common in this category — they do not show the slight greasiness that a warm bar transfers to its wrapper. For a seasonal or gift format where the bar sits in a box, the constructions on our luxury chocolate boxes with fitted trays apply.
Candy Bar Boxes — specification
The rows that are specific to this build first, then what applies to every job we run. Anything not listed is a question, not a limit — send the brief.
This build
- Inner
- Aluminum foil, metallized film or foil-paper laminate; food contact grade
- Outer
- Printed paper sleeve 100–170 gsm, tuck carton 16–20 pt, or printed flow-wrap film
- Sizes
- Built to the wrapped bar; standard molds 45 g to 100 g
- Full color, matte or uncoated; foil and emboss on sleeves
- Panels
- Cacao percentage, weight, allergens, ingredients, batch code area
- Minimum
- 100 units
On every job
- Print process
- Flexo in one to six colors, printed on the outer face only and before any lining goes on.
- Color
- Food-safe inks throughout. Kraft mutes color; a white board or liner is needed for anything photographic.
- Tolerance
- Cutting plus or minus 1 mm, and fit confirmed by filling a plain sample from your own kitchen or line.
- Tooling
- A cutting die per size, kept. Molded pulp needs a tool per shape, which is a longer lead and a larger one-off.
- Food contact
- Every board food-contact grade, with grease resistance built into the sheet and never a PFAS treatment.
- Sustainability
- Aqueous linings and unlined boards repulp with ordinary paper. PE-lined cups need cup collection, and we say which you have.
- Artwork
- Vector PDF or AI, 3 mm bleed, 4 mm safe area, fonts outlined. We check every file and send a proof before press.
- Dieline
- Supplied free with the quote, before you commit. Yours whether or not you order.
- Sample
- A plain unprinted sample at the finished size on request, for fit and construction.
- Reorders
- Skip the tooling and go straight to press at a lower unit price.
- Lead time
- Quoted with the price against your fill date rather than promised before we have seen the spec.
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia — priced in the delivery currency, freight included.
Boards and films we build candy bar boxes on
Food packaging is chosen for what the food does to it: grease, steam, heat and time. Every board here is food-contact grade, and none of them uses a PFAS treatment for grease resistance.
Food-grade virgin board
Bleached board made for direct food contact. Clean, bright, no recycled fiber and no mineral-oil risk from recovered paper.
14–24ptGrease-resistant board
Resistance built into the sheet rather than sprayed on. Holds fries, pastry and butter without darkening. PFAS-free.
16–24ptPE-lined cupstock
Board with a polyethylene film for hot and cold liquid. Microwave-safe for reheating; recycled only where cup collection exists.
260–350gsmAqueous-lined cupstock
A water-based lining instead of PE. Repulpable in ordinary paper recycling in more places, and compostable; a slightly shorter hold time.
260–320gsmGreaseproof and glassine
Dense, calendered paper that resists fat through the fiber. Wraps, liners and interleaves; breathable, so pastry stays crisp.
30–55gsmFood-grade corrugated
E and B flute with a food-contact liner, vented where steam has to leave. Pizza, catering and anything hot and heavy.
E and B fluteMolded pulp and bagasse
Fiber pressed into a shape. Holds heat, resists grease with no lining, composts, and takes only an embossed or one-color mark.
Molded to shapeRecycled board
Post-consumer fiber. Used for outers, sleeves and anything that does not touch food directly — not for direct contact.
Non-contact onlyNot sure which? Say what goes in it and where it is sold — the material follows from that. Our notes on recycled, recyclable and compostable cover which claims each stock can honestly carry.
- 01
Send what you have
A dimension, a photograph beside a ruler, or the product itself. No technical drawing needed — that part is ours.
- 02
We quote and draw
A price, a dieline and a date come back together. If a different build would suit the product better, that is in the reply too.
- 03
Approve the dieline
The flat drawing is yours to check: which panel is the front, where the folds fall, how deep the cavity really is.
- 04
Artwork on the dieline
You place your design on the flat we sent, or we place it for you, and you see a proof before anything goes to press.
- 05
A sample if you want one
A plain unprinted sample at the finished size shows fit and construction — the things a drawing cannot.
- 06
Cut, printed, shipped
The die is cut once and kept, so every reorder skips the tooling and goes straight to press at a lower unit price.
Format
Vector PDF or AI where possible. Raster artwork at 300dpi at final size, in CMYK.
Bleed
3 mm past every trim line, so a fraction of drift on the cutter never leaves a white edge.
Safe area
Keep type and anything important 4 mm inside the cut and away from every fold.
Color
Convert to CMYK before sending. Uncoated stock prints lighter; a spot color is the only exact match.
Fonts
Outline them or supply the files. A missing font substitutes silently and the proof will not match.
Barcodes
On a light, matte, unvarnished patch with the quiet zone clear — a code on gloss fails the scanner.
Not set up that way? Send it anyway — fixing a file is a short conversation, and we check every one before press. Our guide to preparing print files covers each point.
Food finishes are limited by what may touch food, and that is the point.
Food-safe inks
Printed on the outer face only. Every food pack we make uses them, laminated or not.
Uncoated kraft
No coating at all. Breathable, so pastry stays crisp, and it takes one or two colors.
Aqueous varnish
Scuff resistance without a plastic film, so the pack still repulps.
Molded emboss
A logo pressed into pulp or bagasse. No ink, nothing to rub off, and it survives grease.
Grease-resistant face
Not a finish you can see. It is in the sheet, it is PFAS-free, and it is why the print stays clean.
Matte lamination
Available on outers and sleeves that never touch food — a cake box lid, a carrier, a gift sleeve.
Not sure which suits the shelf it sells from? Say where the product is sold and we suggest one — our notes on specialty finishes show them on real boxes.
Sizing food packaging around a portion, hot: candy bar boxes
Food is sized by serving, not by dimensions, and it is served hot, heaped and in a hurry. Send us the portion — or better, the box you use now with the food in it — and we size to how it is actually filled.
- Portion, heaped
- Fries, popcorn and salad are served above the rim. A box sized to a level fill looks mean and spills in a bag.
- Lid clearance
- Enough that a loaded burger or a topped cake does not touch the lid. This is the single most common complaint about a food box.
- Venting
- Hot food steams. Vents in the lid keep pastry and fries crisp; a sealed box is right only for cold food.
- Grease path
- Where the fat sits decides the board. Say if the food is fried, buttered or sauced, and whether it is held for minutes or an hour.
- Stacking in a bag
- Delivery boxes are stacked five high on a bike. The lid has to hold the box above it off the food below.
- Sample fill
- A plain box filled from your kitchen settles the size in one try, and we send one before the run.
Not sure your numbers are right? Send the product dimensions rather than the box dimensions and we work the box out — the full method is in our guide to measuring for a box.
Interactive · five steps · no sign-up
Build your Candy Bar Boxes in 3D
Pick a shape, type a size, choose a board and a finish. The preview on the left redraws as you go, and the spec lands with us exactly as you set it.
Frequently asked questions
Got a question about candy bar boxes? The answers below cover what we get asked most. If yours is not here, send it with a brief, message us on WhatsApp, or call +1 503-461-4788 — we reply the same working day.
Do I need a foil inner wrap?
Yes. Chocolate takes on odors and stales in air, and paper alone stops neither. Foil or a metallized film is the layer that does the work.
Can I print on the foil?
You can, though a single color or a blind emboss reads better at that moment than full color. Most of the budget belongs on the outer.
Sleeve or carton?
A sleeve for a flat molded bar in a foil wrap. A carton for a thick, filled or irregular bar that could snap in transit.
What size should the sleeve be?
Sized to the wrapped bar, not the bare one — the wrap adds a millimeter or two per face. Send us a finished bar.
Will the sleeve slide off?
Not if it is sized correctly. A loose sleeve slides along the bar in a stacked box and ends up off-center, which is the usual complaint.
What is flow wrap?
A printed film sealed around the bar on a line, doing both jobs in one layer. It is the fastest format and suits volume rather than craft.
Can packaging stop chocolate blooming?
No — bloom is a temperature problem. A tight foil inner slows temperature change, and a matte outer hides the slight greasiness a warm bar transfers.
What has to be on the pack?
Weight, ingredients, allergens and a batch code area. On a specialty bar, cacao percentage and origin are what buyers read first.
Is the sleeve recyclable?
A paper sleeve is. The foil inner is not, in most streams, and they separate easily, which is one argument for the two-layer format over flow wrap.
Can you match a specific brown?
Closely, with a spot color. Browns and deep reds are the hardest colors to match in four-color process, so a spot is worth it in this category.
What is the minimum order?
100 units. Sleeves and cartons run many-up on a sheet, so short runs are practical for a small maker.
Will you send a sample?
An unprinted sleeve or carton in your size, so you can wrap a real bar and stack a box of them before print.
Same range
