Summer Heat and Melting Bars

Staff Alert – Summer and Melting Bars

With summer here, the Quality Department has put together some tips to help minimize the problem of our Bars melting in the summer heat. Please know that that we are working very hard to improve all aspects of our process to minimize these problems. Those efforts include everything from modifying the Bar formulations making them more heat stable to evaluating shipment processes to minimize melting during transit. And while we realize that the approach detailed below will not solve every problem with soft bars, it should make things more manageable in the short term.


Weight Watchers coated chocolate and peanut bars are designed to melt in your mouth. If they didn’t, they would taste “waxy” and no one likes that. The temperature of our mouths is about 95 degrees F. In the summer, a car trunk or a UPS truck can get hotter than that. So, our coated bars are bound to start melting in hot weather. If, however, they are protected during storage, transported properly, and handled well, that damage can be kept to a minimum. Here is what we recommend:

• When you receive a shipment of coated bars and the weather is hot, try to let the cases or boxes sit overnight at normal room temperature before you sell or open a box. When the bars, especially the new Peanut Butter Bliss and Double Chocolate Delight bars, are hot (above 80 deg. F) they are very soft and can be easily damaged by handling. However, when they cool, they return to normal condition.

• If you store coated bars in your home or a traveling location, you should try to keep the storage area below 80 deg. F.

• If you transport coated bars in hot weather, you should try to carry them in the passenger compartment of your car, rather then the trunk. While it may not be possible, in extreme heat, you can consider carrying them in a plastic container along with a couple of ice packs you have frozen overnight. That should keep them below the melting point. If they do get warm, remember to let them cool before opening them.

• If you must sell a hot box of coated bars, let the purchaser know that they must let them cool to room temperature before opening them.