Chocolate de Mesa

Design: VVORKROOM
Location: Mexico
Project Type: Produced
Client: Cuna de Piedra
Photographer: Caroga
Product Launch Location: Global
Packaging Contents: Chocolate
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Cardboard & Foil
Printing Process: Offset

Cuna de Piedra is a bean-to-bar chocolate company whose purpose is to reposition the image of Mexico at a global level, demonstrating through the quality of its products, its team, and its design, that what is made in Mexico is of high quality.

The “chocolates de mesa” or drinking chocolates were their latest launch and were to be differentiated from the line chocolate bars. In spite of being a highly appreciated product abroad, one of the brand’s most important requests was to preserve a 100% authentic identity that does not pretend to satisfy the graphic taboos when thinking about Mexico (papel picado, calaveras, luchador masks… ). Instead, the packaging had to represent contemporary Mexico, but one that does not deny its past, but rather embraces and shares its traditions.

Since these packages are an evolution of the brand, we had to create something that was very different from the existing line packages. That’s why we chose to be very subtle on the outside, using only the resource of typography on a black background and differentiating the 3 different types of cacao with a detail of color, to later surprise consumers once they open the product and discover that same color but exposed in a beautiful shiny foil that wraps each chocolate. The choice of these colors: orange, light blue and lilac, was our way of embracing the colorful Mexico, the one that adorns the streets in the festivities, the markets and the typical dresses of the local people.

The “chocolate de mesa” or drinking chocolate is a typical Mexican drink that has existed since pre-Hispanic times, the way cacao was consumed before the arrival of the Spanish. There is evidence in codices explaining that the presence of foam in drinks was a characteristic that had spiritual meaning and this “food of the gods” was reserved only for the privileged class.

In many places of Mexico (such as Oaxaca) drinking chocolate is still consumed regularly on all occasions: funerals, weddings, baptisms and other parties. But in others, the tradition has been lost. That’s why it is essential for us to remember, in the most authentic form, the way our grandmothers consumed chocolate, and to manage to draw attention through design so that this product it is valued again inside and outside the country.