Custom Chocolate Bar Boxes
A bar sleeve is one of the smallest canvases in packaging and one of the most demanding. Two faces, a spine of a few millimeters, and on those you have to fit a brand, a cocoa percentage, an origin story, a full ingredient list and an allergen declaration.
- Formats
- Open sleeves, full wrappers, tuck cartons
- Board
- 250–350gsm; uncoated, kraft or coated food-grade stock
- Sizing
- Built to the wrapped bar including the flow-wrap fin seal
Get a price for Chocolate 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.
Measure the wrapped bar, not the molded one
The sleeve goes around a bar that is already in a foil or flow-wrap. That inner adds thickness, and flow-wrap adds a fin seal along one edge that can be two or three millimeters on its own.
Wrap a real bar the way you will actually wrap it, then measure across the thickest point including the seal. A sleeve sized to the bare bar will not go on, and one that has to be forced will scuff its own print at the leading edge.
A bar sleeve and a boxed assortment of pieces are sized from opposite ends: one from a fixed wrapper, the other from a tray.
Bars vary between molding runs too, especially hand-poured ones. Measure three and use the largest.
The information that has to fit, in order of who cares
The nutrition table is the item that catches people out. It is a grid, it cannot be shrunk below legibility, and on a 45 mm wide sleeve it will occupy most of the back. Lay it out before designing the front.
| Cocoa percentage | Read before anything else by anyone buying dark chocolate |
|---|---|
| Origin or bean | The reason a craft bar costs what it does |
| Ingredients and allergens | Mandatory, and milk, soya and nuts are almost always in it |
| Nutrition panel | Mandatory, and it needs real width to stay legible |
| Weight and best before | Mandatory; best before applied at pack, not printed here |
Sleeve, wrapper or carton
For a craft bar sold on a counter, the open sleeve is close to standard because it lets the foil color show at the ends and uses the least material. For anything posted or stacked, a carton earns its cost.
- Open sleeve. A band around the wrapped bar; least board, and the wrap shows at both ends.
- Full wrapper. Folded around the bar and glued; covers everything, more board, no ends showing.
- Tuck carton. A box the bar slides into; protects the corners and stacks properly.
- Foil-only. No printed outer at all, with a printed foil — striking, and it needs volume.
Uncoated board is the category default and has a cost
Craft chocolate has settled almost universally on uncoated stock, often with a single-color or two-color print. It looks right, it feels right, and it is the surface cocoa butter wicks into fastest if it ever touches the bar directly.
Because the sleeve never touches the chocolate — the inner wrap does — that risk is mostly theoretical here, which is why uncoated works in this category and not in a chocolate selection box with a card insert.
Color on uncoated stock behaves differently
Ink sinks into uncoated board, so everything prints slightly lighter and softer than the screen shows. Deep browns go muddy, bright reds go dull, and a photographic image loses most of its contrast.
Design for it rather than fighting it: flat colors, generous type, foil or a spot color where something has to be vivid. A bar sleeve is one of the few places where a two-color job on uncoated looks better than full color on coated.
Chocolate 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
- Formats
- Open sleeves, full wrappers, tuck cartons
- Board
- 250–350gsm; uncoated, kraft or coated food-grade stock
- Sizing
- Built to the wrapped bar including the flow-wrap fin seal
- Digital and litho; spot colors and foil on uncoated
- Contact
- Inner foil or film wrap supplied separately, at fill
- Minimum
- 100 sleeves
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 chocolate 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: chocolate 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 Chocolate 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 chocolate 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.
What is the minimum order?
100 sleeves, wrappers or cartons.
Do you supply the foil inner wrap?
No — that is applied at fill with the bar. We make the printed outer that goes around it.
Why does my print look flat on uncoated board?
Uncoated stock absorbs ink, so everything reads lighter. Design in flat colors or add a spot color.
Can the sleeve touch the chocolate?
It should not. Cocoa butter migrates into board and inks are not intended for direct food contact.
What size do you need?
The wrapped bar measured across the thickest point, including the flow-wrap fin seal.
Sleeve or carton for posting?
Carton. A sleeve leaves the bar's corners exposed, and bar corners are what break in a parcel.
Do you supply the foil inner wrap?
No — that is applied at fill with the bar. We make the printed sleeve, wrapper or carton that goes around it.
Why does my print look flat on uncoated board?
Uncoated stock absorbs ink, so everything reads lighter and softer. Design in flat colors or add a spot color where it has to be vivid.
Can the sleeve touch the chocolate?
It should not. Cocoa butter migrates into board and printing inks are not intended for direct food contact.
Sleeve or carton for posting?
Carton. A sleeve leaves the bar's corners exposed, and bar corners are what break in a parcel.
Same range
