An irrationally detailed examination of individually wrapped candy

The Spanish word for lozenge is pastilla, as I learned on a recent trip to Mexico, where much of my family lives.

While my primos and primas and tios and tias are largely bilingual and more-than-meet me half-way as I stumble through my broken Spanish, at one point in the trip my fiance and I found ourselves in the mountain-side, semi-tropical town of Taxco, making semi-obscene gestures at a pharmacy, trying to communicate the meaning of "throat lozenge" with our hands.

Cut off from our native language and — as I learned after multiple failed attempts to use my smartphone — an internet signal, my fiance and I resorted to pantomime gestures that could have easily been confused with a monkey asking for a banana, or worse.

“Vicks. Halls,” I grimaced through my raw vocal chords, hoping the universal language of branding might break through the language barrier — to no avail. My own flu-like symptoms had been building for days, and all I wanted was to continue exploring my family’s native country in as little pain as possible.

Time and again the helpful Mexican woman working behind the counter brought over all manner of medicine, ranging from pills labelled “antigripal” designed to fight off typical cold and flu symptoms (which I later bought) to some sort of chewable tablet that based on an image on the box of a genderless person with a red circle around its neck offered some sort of relief to the throat.

But none of the remedies gathered on the counter between us came close to offering the mentholated relief of a sugary lozenge dissolving down the back of my throat that I so craved.

In desperation, one last time, I typed the words “throat lozenge” into the search bar on my phone and ran to the pharmacy door, holding it to the sky as if releasing a pigeon with a note begging for help tied to its foot.

Never before had I been so happy to see an advertisement appear on my phone than the image of Vicks throat lozenges that suddenly populated at the top of the search page. I showed it to the woman behind the counter.

“Ohh, BVICK!” she exclaimed with understanding using the Spanish pronunciation of “V” that has more “B” than I was used to. She pointed to a display case directly behind me, which in my urgency to ask for help from a trained pharmacist, I’d walk right past.

“Drops,” the package read in large font, beneath the clear Vicks branding I knew so well, only without the “S” at the end, as it is branded in Mexico. “Pastilla sabor cereza refrescante.” Cherry-flavored refreshment.

Eagerly, I ripped off the cellophane around the box, dug my fingernail into the cardboard box, tearing open the top and exposing a single wax-paper bag filled with 20 “pastillas” of triangle-shaped relief.

Removing one of the pastillas with my thumb and index finger I popped it into my mouth and felt the welcome menthol almost instantly soothe my aching throat. Instinctively, I folded the wax paper bag, closed the cardboard lid and kissed my fiance on the cheek.

Which is when it dawned on me. The simple fact that the lozenges weren’t wrapped individually, and still they weren’t stuck together. If individual wrapping wasn’t necessary in this semi-tropical environment, then why have it at all?

The lack of extra wrapping left me with decidedly less waste to dispose of and thankfully, 20 fewer pieces of inch-by-inch banner advertisements to clutter up my subconscious.

Had I stumbled across a conspiracy to brainwash US citizens back home combined with an easily avoidable environmental catastrophe? Or was I merely delusional from a week of fighting off the flu, and seeing conspiracy where there was none?

Days later, on the plane flight home, I was determined to find out.

To get to the heart of the Great Lozenge Wrapper Conspiracy of 2018, I would need to go all the way back to the beginning of individually wrapped, sugary treats and to the actual manufacturers of those delicious Mexican lozenges.

Candy and polio

The year was 1916, and the United States was in a panic about the recent polio epidemic crippling thousands of children, according to a report published in the Journal of American Culture, an imprint of Wiley Periodicals.

Called A Candy Prophylactive: Danger Disease and Children's Candy, the report details how in spite of next-to-no evidence for any connection between polio and unwrapped candy, the two became entangled as things often are, in rumors and fear spread between well-intending parents.

Until that time, unwrapped candy was largely sold in open-air markets, with only the fanciest of establishments bothering to store even some of their goods in jars or behind glass windows, providing an easy scapegoat for a wide range of ills, according to report author and Rutgers University professor, Samira Kawash.

“Candy came to signify fears regarding the vulnerability of children, worries about the dangers of filth, flies and germs, anxiety about children’s autonomy and pleasure,” wrote Kawash in a pre-publication version of the paper. ”And particularly in relation to their mouths and what they put in them, as well as parents’ doubts about their ability to protect their children.”

It turns out that it was government regulators who first followed this consumer demand for cleaner candy with a concerted push to protect the health of US children. But it didn’t take long for the candy industry itself “to promote the idea of hygienic packaging as a means of distinguishing goods of quality,” Kawash wrote.

Building on early candy-wrapping technology first unveiled in 1913, businesses began to experiment with materials other than paper and foil, such as the newly invented cellophane that both protected the candy and let people see it, and varnish-free, moisture resistant wax paper.

“By wrapping candy in shiny paper, it is both protected and visually enhanced,” Kawash wrote. “The wrapping thus resolves the conflict between mother’s concern with health and child’s fascination with shiny candy. Mother does not need to interfere with her child’s candy consumption, and the child follows her superficial preferences.”

It appeared my original flu-inspired conspiracy theory that individually wrapped lozenges were tiny, polluting advertisements parading as a means to keep sugary squares from sticking together would need some tweaking.

The branding conspiracy

But even if the reason I imagined for why the wrappers were necessary proved wrong, perhaps my theory for why they persisted at all was based in some truth.

It turns out, it was a series of early advertising campaigns targeting parents that first convinced them of the urgency of individual wrapping, according to Kawash, who has her PhD in literature and has published multiple books on a wide range of subjects.

If it was ads that first won over parents and the “shiny paper” that won over children, why wouldn’t ads also be the reason wrapping continues? I wondered to myself.

Finding futher evidence of this, I discovered that in 2017, the grand poobah of individually wrapped candies, Starbursts generated a reported $162 million in sales for their sugary treats wrapped in 15 mm by 15 mm by 8 mm branded content.

So successful are these billions of tiny advertisements discarded like tiny billboards around the world that an entire niche industry of custom, personalized candy wrappers has emerged letting paying customers pay to wrap everything from chocolate bars to breath mints in their marketing content of choice.

“The trick is to design a message that will resonate once the customer decides it's time to eat the candy, and develop a strategy that allows you to see whether those free desserts are leading to increased sales,” according to a report by Small Business Chronicle reporter Craig Berman who specializes in marketing content.

While the candy-packaging industry has kept a suspiciously tight wrap around its annual revenue numbers (I was unable to find them after doing a quick Google search) the recent acquisition of India’s fourth largest “flexible packaging company,” Creative Polypack, revealed the firm is expected to generate $75 million in sales this year, and employs about 850 people, according to Confectionary News, a trade publication that specializes in all things sweet.

But then I discovered another chink in my conspiracy theory armor. Of the top-10, non-chocolate, chewy candy brands in the United States, only two, Starbursts and Airheads, come in individually wrapped packages, and both of those are made of soft waxy ingredients that might actually benefit from being separated by a layer of wrapping.

So perhaps, it’s not a branding brainwash conspiracy either. Regardless, if individual wrapping doesn’t fight polio, and is rarely used to keep sweets from sticking together, why is it still so pervasive?

Perhaps I’d just stumbled on a preventable environmental catastrophe, just waiting to happen.

The environmental impact

While more and more products are being recycled, candy wrappers, and their cousin, throat lozenge wrappers, have largely evaded our attention.

Among the extensive data tracked by the US Environmental Protection Agency on how waste and other materials are recycled, nowhere are candy wrappers, much less lozenge wrappers even mentioned.

Perhaps, one reason for this is that unlike the plastic in many bottles, which is made from one, easily reusable material, candy wrappers are frequently made of “mixed materials” and are harder to reuse, according to Earth911, an environmental blog.

“As a result, most waste management companies, manufacturers and municipal recycling facilities tend to turn their backs from candy wrappers,” Earth 911 contributors Becky Hammad and Lauren Murphy wrote.

Aha! If that’s not a cover-up, I don’t know what is!?

Except, that later in that same article, the authors share progress being made by Netherlands-based Rodenburgh Polymers which in 2016 helped candy giant Mars make its first bio-based packaging solution.

In addition, companies like US-based Alter Eco Foods are now working on compostable candy wrappers that can be used to pot plants and more, but still have that shiny metallic sheen so attractive to children and advertisers.

Procter & Gamble responds

So what is the secret behind why some lozenge companies individually wrap each piece and others store them in a single bag?

I reached out to the Mexican division of P&G, better known as Procter & Gamble, which makes the Vicks lozenges, to ask what goes into their packaging decisions and if some countries receive different branding and packaging considerations?

To my surprise, a representative of the company responded, in what seems to me like a good faith effort to clear things up, even if her English was only slightly better than my Spanish:

Let me tell you that P&G has high standars to fulfill regards their products and this includes packaging, we are a company that tries their best to accomplish their clients requests. Some of the clients; distributors, they ask for the packaging of their products to be in an specific way, some of them request for the units to be individuals depending on how much product they request to us. Some other clients request a lot more units and request another way for their products to be packaged and deliver.

Do not forget that you can write us for any doubts that may arise, because we are here to help you.

 greetings,

Alexandra

P&G Team

So, why did I write this article?

You could say I was just having fun, I guess, and hopefully you did too, if you’re still reading. As a result, we have now both learned a lot of likely very useless, but new information, and perhaps one or two useful things too.

Either way, I hope we both think twice before thoughtlessly discarding our bite-sized candy wrappings in the future.