Place fragile finished chocolates into boxed-assortment / gift-box trays

In premium assortment and gift lines (e.g., Pot of Gold boxes, seasonal gift boxes), individual finished chocolate pieces must be selected and seated one-by-one into the cavities of a thermoformed or molded paper tray in a specific layout. The objects are small, fragile, and easily marred: soft-tempered or filled chocolate that fingerprints, fractures, or blooms under excess pressure, with piece-to-piece variation in geometry across many SKUs. The task sits downstream of molding/cooling/enrobing and upstream of lidding and cartoning, so a damaged or mis-seated piece must be detected and rejected before the box is closed. It is hard for a robot because each piece tolerates only a narrow grip-force window before crushing, the surface is delicate to abrasion, and cavity placement must be gentle and precise rather than dropped. Hershey runs substantial seasonal/assortment volume but no public figures tie automation specifically to this task. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.