How to Ship Chocolate

Who doesn’t love chocolate? Similar to shipping flowers, chocolates are a wildly popular item to ship—especially around Valentine’s Day. However, a lot more goes into it than just slapping a shipping label on a box of candied goodies. You’ll need to consider the time of year in which you are shipping, how much you’re shipping out (in total weight), where your package is traveling to, and how quickly you can get it there.

Table of Contents

• Speed is the Key to Shipping Chocolate
• Avoid Heat at All Costs
• Use USPS Priority Mail Cubic to Save Money When You Ship Chocolate

Speed is the Key to Shipping Chocolate

First thing’s first. When it comes to shipping chocolate, it’s crucial to get it to your final destination as quickly as possible. This is because the longer chocolate is in transit, the more likely it is to encounter higher temperatures and melt (depending on the time of year and weather, of course). Trust me when I tell you: nobody wants to open up a box of melted chocolates. Would you?

Here’s the kicker: each shipping carrier’s fastest delivery service costs more than regular ground service, and chocolate is a notoriously low margin item. If your eCommerce business sells chocolate, high shipping costs can take a HUGE chunk out of your profits. You’ll want to find a solution that offers the best mix of fast delivery and affordable rates, and USPS is the one carrier that will give you just that. You can use FedEx or UPS to get the job done, sure, but USPS will always be the cheapest and most reliable option.

Avoid Heat at All Costs

Remember: heat is chocolate’s mortal enemy. Just think about the last time you left a candy bar in your car during the middle of summer (yuck!). To prevent melting, chocolate manufacturing companies will do just about anything to protect their products from high temperates. In fact, many chocolate manufacturers suspend shipping operations during the summer months altogether! Shipping chocolate during more temperate times of the year is a pretty safe bet, but if you plan to ship chocolate during the late spring or summer, you need to do all you can to keep it from melting. Therefore, you’ll want to treat shipping chocolate the same way you treat shipping frozen food.

Our recommendation is to line your package with special cooling kinds of packing material such as gel packs. Gel packs will keep your chocolate at a safe temperature (between 32º and 60º Fahrenheit) and will last longer than other options like dry ice during transit. It’s also much safer.

Some Types of Chocolate Melt at Lower Temperatures Than Others

Something interesting to keep in mind is that different types of chocolate have different melting points. In other words, they melt when exposed to different levels of heat. A piece of chocolate’s melting point is determined by the ratio of cocoa to milk fat; the more cocoa, the higher the melting point. Dark chocolate has a higher percentage of cocoa in proportion to milk fat, so it melts at a higher temperature than milk chocolate. For example, milk chocolate will quickly melt in the palm of your hand, while dark chocolate won’t.

Use USPS Priority Mail Cubic to Save Money When You Ship Chocolate

If you are shipping out chocolate, chances are it’s more than one box or bar…and you’re probably including other goodies inside the package, as well. As a result, your parcel may get heavy (gel packs also add to the weight). Therefore, you should ship your package in the special mail class USPS Priority Mail Cubic and save yourself the most money possible.

Priority Mail Cubic is different from other USPS services because it is based on volume, and not total weight. Like all Priority Mail Services, delivery occurs between 1-3 days and it automatically comes with $100 of insurance. Simply put, it’s the cheapest and fastest way to send small parcels under 20 pounds with USPS. Priority Mail Cubic is the perfect service for shipping boxes of chocolates, and you can access it exclusively through online shipping software solutions.