How it began
Aluminum foil was conceived as a replacement for tin foil. In 1910 the Swiss engineer Robert Victor Neher took out a patent for a continuous rolling process and opened the first aluminum foil rolling plant in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. Swiss food makers were early customers. By 1911 Tobler of Bern was wrapping its chocolate bars in the foil, including the triangular Toblerone, and by 1912 Maggi was using it to pack soups and stock cubes.
How it works
The patented process rolls aluminum continuously into thin foil. The value of the material in packaging lies in its barrier properties: it is a total block to light, moisture and aroma. A reviewer of the dairy trade in the 1930s wrote that foil kept highly sensitive products, especially butter and cheese, fresh longer and called it an indispensable aid against deterioration.
How it spread
In the 1920s foil made inroads into the German dairy sector, and household foil was introduced in the United States. In the 1930s it took over the packaging of butter and cheese, and European makers began selling rolls and sheets for the home kitchen. Studies presented at the World's Dairy Congress in Berlin in 1937 found that butter wrapped in it stayed fresh two to three months longer than in earlier materials. Foil food containers appeared in Europe in 1948, first for bakery products.
What lasted
In the 1960s thin foil was combined with paper and polyethylene into the laminate for aseptic drink cartons, and into laminate tubes for toothpaste and ointments. Blister packs for medicines spread widely in the 1980s. Foil makers report cutting the weight of the material by more than 30 percent since then. It is now used in sachets, pouches, lids, wrappers, blister packs and containers for food, drink and pharmaceuticals.
