Shipping Woes

I don't normally ship my confections. Sure, I've done it on a few occasions, but there's a lot that can go wrong. And the cost to ship small packages is exorbitant. But this year, if I wanted my family to have a box of chocolates for Christmas, I had no other choice. 

The first challenge in shipping chocolate is making sure that the individual pieces do not move around in their box. Step one is packing them tightly. Sometimes this results in more chocolate than intended (or paid for) because the box has been stuffed to prevent lateral movement. My four pieces were fairly snug thanks to the polar bear paws, which took up more space. 

Step two is adding candy pads to protect the surface of the chocolate and cushion it from impact. While most boxes of chocolates have one insert, many chocolatiers will double up if they know a box will be shipped. Because I've never shipped my chocolates before, I don't have any padding. My solution was to steal a pad from a box of Lindt chocolates at work. I cut it into squares that would fit my ballotin boxes and placed one under the chocolates and one on top of the chocolates. The boxes were pretty snug as I closed the tops and sealed them with stickers. 

Then I undertook the challenge of packing the assortments into a shipping box. Knowing how expensive it can be to mail small packages, which are charged by both size and weight, I chose to purchase a flat rate box because at least then there wouldn't be any heart-stopping surprises at the cash. The extra small box from Canada Post was sufficient and cost $18.99+tx. I packed it as tightly as possible so that there was no movement inside, employing skills honed through hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours playing Tetris as a teenager and university student. The assortment boxes went in first and then around them I added a few small gifts, a few Ooey Gooeys from Cape Breton Fudge Company, a jar of Christmas jam from a local Christmas craft fair, and a few pieces of salt water taffy. To make everything even tighter, I added a few greeting cards and some tissue paper. Once I was confident nothing would move inside the box, I sealed it. 

Beyond the physical damage from movement, the biggest enemy of chocolate is heat. For this reason, many chocolate shops require customers to purchase cold packs for their shipments to ensure the chocolate doesn't get too warm and melt in transit. They are certainly mandatory when shipping between April and October. In the winter, however, you can usually get away without adding them (at least in Canada). I decided I would take the chance. (I'm not sure there is any cold pack that could last long enough for a box handled by Canada Post anyway...)

The shipping method I chose had a delivery standard of 5 days. I dropped the box off on December 4th and began tracking its journey. For the life of me, I will never understand why packages must travel hundreds of kilometers west only to turn around and return almost to their point of origin before continuing east. But I watched the package move through time and space before checking in at a depot in Dieppe. From there the shipping delays began. Thanks to weather conditions, I'm pretty sure that the package sat for about a week at the Marine Atlantic ferry terminal. By about day 13, I began to worry that the package would never reach its destination, but on day 15, it was finally delivered to my family.

Thankfully, it appears the chocolate survived shipping. There was no damage to the package and my mother confirmed that the chocolates all appeared to be fine. 

If this is to become an annual event, though, I'm going to need to purchase additional packing materials.