JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
This hand-out pamphlet seems to be a case where the sale of an edible product is made for the sale of its packaging.
The pamphlet shouts that CANDY IS DELICIOUS FOOD, which is certainly a correct statement if food=digestible. It tells/sells the story of candy as a profit-maker to the grocery seller, saying that “32% average gross profit on home consumption units“, those delicious-sounding unit-things being the candy.
There are bits and pieces about candy display and placement, all on the advice of the maker of the stuff that in which the candy was wrapped–cellophane. The publisher and distributor of the pamphlet, the “Cellophane” Division of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. Inc., had a huge vested interest in candy sales: candy was mostly wrapped in Cellophane (starting with Whitman in 1912) and by the time du Pont achieved its water- and moisture-proof Cellophane in Delaware the product accounted (in 1938) for 25% of the company’s profits. That’s pretty big, and so candy as a major muncher of Cellophane would be promoted by du Pont as pretty big, too. And as food, for added Bigness.
