Alufoil’s History – The Beginning
(1910-1940)

From chocolate wrapping to packaging all rounder

Robert Victor Neher who applied for a patent for the continuous rolling process and opened the first aluminium rolling plant in 1910 at Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, could be called the father of alufoil production in Europe. Destined to replace tin, among the major advantages demonstrated by aluminium foil in comparison with tin were its lightweight and its cheaper production costs.

In 1912 Neher, with his partner Dr Edwin Lauber, created a limited partnership Dr. Lauber, Neher Cie, and formed the German subsidiary Aluminium-Walzwerke Singen GmbH under the holding company Aluminium-Walzwerke AG. The Singen business later became part of the global Alcan business and today is Amcor Flexibles Singen, which you will visit today.

At the time a local press report said: "The aluminium rolling mill commissioned here a few months ago is blossoming quickly and already working day and night shifts in order to satisfy the demand for aluminium foil. Produced in a variety of thicknesses, it is replacing the customary silver foil as a wrapping for chocolate and other consumer goods."

Importantly Neher and Lauber were also able to successfully assist prospective users of alufoil by creating the necessary new systems for packaging and converting equipment.

However credit must also be given to Martin Kiliani, Aluminium-Industrie, who in 1890 forecast that aluminium sheet was better than tin foil for chocolate packaging and the vision of his remarks can be judged by the almost instant success of alufoil as a packaging material due to its barrier and aroma protection properties; something which is still in evidence today. Both the forward-thinking Neher and Kiliani were instrumental in the first use of alufoil to wrap chocolate, which took place in 1911 when Bern-based Tobler began wrapping its chocolate bars in the material. This included the unique triangular chocolate bar, Toblerone which had been launched in 1908. And by 1912 alufoil was being used by Maggi to pack soups and stock cubes.

In the 1920s alufoil's influence as a successful packaging material in Germany grew sufficiently to make real inroads into the dairy sector, one of the largest sectors of the German economy, and during the 1920s and 1930s alufoil comprehensively conquered the packaging market for butter and cheese. At the time a reviewer of the sector wrote: "More so than in any other sector, foil keeps highly sensitive products, especially butter and cheese fresh longer. It is an unrivalled and indispensable aid in the battle against deterioration."

And in 1937 alufoil was first proposed as a packaging material for butter at the World's Dairy Congress in Berlin. Results of studies revealed that alufoil allowed butter to stay fresher for two-three months longer than previously used materials. And as one speaker correctly forecast, "The favourable properties of alufoil mean it will become the simplest and cheapest form of ‘keep-fresh' packaging in every household."

Alufoil had a number of other advantages compared with the previously used tin foil: its chemical properties meant that it did not turn black when coming into contact with cheese and was some 20 % more economical than using tin. Other possible uses were also explored for example baking products where alufoil's non-stick properties came into their own. Marketed as "sterile, free from bacteria, clean and trouble free, and reusable" the inroads into packaging markets for alufoil, sometimes called silver paper or silver foil, continued up to the start of the Second World War.

In the mid-1930s the European alufoil sector began to produce rolls of household foil for the domestic kitchen as either a tear off product on rolls or as loose sheets in bags. Household foil had been introduced successfully in the US some years earlier in the late 1920s.

Other suggestions for use, some of which are alive and well today, included Easter Eggs; soap; a layer under postage stamps to prevent sticking; decoration on serving dishes; and even as a scarecrow with the alufoil continuously sparkling in the wind.