A care package lives or dies on what is actually still intact when it arrives. Some sweets shrug off several days in transit; others turn up as a puddle or a pile of crumbs.
What melts: chocolate is the real risk
Chocolate is by far the biggest heat risk in any parcel, particularly during summer months or if it sits for any length of time in a hot postbox, sorting depot or delivery van. If you are set on including chocolate, denser, more solid formats generally hold their shape slightly better than thin bars, but the safest approach in warm weather is simply to avoid posting chocolate-heavy parcels at all and lean on our chocolate range for occasions when melting genuinely is not a risk.
What crushes: delicate and air-filled formats
Meringue-based sweets, foam novelty items and marshmallow-topped treats are the most likely to arrive damaged, because they rely on trapped air that a rigid box protects and a padded envelope does not. Solid, dense sweets have no such problem and survive completely normal handling without any special care.
What actually holds up well
Boiled sweets, gummies, liquorice and fudge are the reliable choices for posting — none of them melt at normal transit temperatures and none of them are structurally fragile. Packing them into a sweet jar or tin adds a layer of physical protection on top of the sweets themselves, and building a personal mix through pick and mix is an easy way to tailor a care package to the specific person it is going to.
Packing it properly
Use a rigid box rather than a padded envelope for anything with structure worth protecting, fill any gaps with scrunched paper or bubble wrap so contents cannot shift in transit, and avoid posting chocolate-heavy parcels at the height of summer if you can help it. None of this is complicated, but skipping it is the single most common reason a care package arrives in worse shape than it left in.
Frequently asked questions
What sweets melt in the post?
Chocolate is the main risk, especially in warm weather or if a parcel sits in transit for a while.
What sweets get crushed?
Delicate, air-filled sweets like meringues and marshmallow teacakes — dense sweets like fudge and boiled sweets survive fine.
Is there anything I cannot post?
No special restriction on ordinary sweets domestically — check with the courier only if alcohol is a genuine ingredient rather than just a flavour.