I remember this Handi-Wrap commercial, but what it really brings back is a debate we used to have in our house — Handi-Wrap or wax paper for my school sandwiches?
At my young age, I already had a pretty strong opinion! Wax paper never seemed to really seal the sandwich. By lunchtime the edges of the bread would already be starting to harden, and that was all the proof I needed that we should be using Handi-Wrap.
Apparently I had fallen right into Dow’s marketing plan.
When Handi-Wrap arrived around 1960, Dow went straight after wax paper. I found an original ad in the Science History Institute collection promising that a 100-foot roll would wrap 100 sandwiches while selling at wax-paper prices. The advertising specifically pushed Handi-Wrap for lunchboxes and claimed sandwiches could stay fresh even when made the night before.
A few years later Dow even created a “Lunch Box Go-Together” store promotion built around Handi-Wrap, so getting Mom to switch the kids’ sandwiches from wax paper to plastic was clearly a big part of the strategy.
And there actually was something behind what I was noticing. Wax paper provides a moisture barrier, but folding can crack or interrupt that barrier, while plastic film can surround the sandwich much more completely.
So I’d like to think I helped convince Mom that Handi-Wrap was the better choice.
Of course, there was one thing stronger than my argument in our house: if the wax paper was on sale, I probably wasn’t winning that week!
Funny how something as ordinary as what Mom wrapped your school sandwich in can become a memory more than 50 years later.
Which did your house use for school lunches — Handi-Wrap, wax paper, aluminum foil, or eventually those wonderful little sandwich bags?
