A little feast for the eyes (Image: Morphotonix)

Why settle for a bar of boring old regular chocolate when you can chow down on the holographic variety instead? Morphotonix, a company based in Lausanne, Switzerland, has developed a way to imprint holograms on to chocolate – without using additives.

Specific microstructures on the surface of the chocolate diffract light to create the holograms. It works in the same way as the security hologram on a credit card, though chocolate is trickier to work with.

Morphotonix etches the required structure into a master mould made from metal. This is then used to make plastic moulds that in turn shape the chocolate. Both dark and milk chocolate can be used, though the complex physics and chemistry of microstructures means the hologram won’t form on some varieties. “We have been testing it with many types of chocolate. Sometimes it works great and sometimes no matter how hard we try it doesn’t mould,” says Morphotonix CEO Veronica Savu.


The company started developing the technology in 2012 and is now working with a German chocolate mould manufacturer to bring it to market. The two companies are presenting the work at the Interpack packaging trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany this week.

Savu says they are also looking at applying the same technique to moulds for other products, so that the finished items carry a mark proving their authenticity. “Instead of having a holographic sticker you can have the hologram directly embedded into any rigid plastic object,” she says. Just don’t eat them.