Packed With Good Memories

Front of a box for preserved ginger, probably dates from the late 1950s-early 1960s. The design never really changed over the decades. 
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Goldpack is a brand I remember well from the kitchen of my Gen X childhood. They were a regular in our house, for my mum often used the products for baking cakes, biscuits and sweets – back in the day when mothers actually had time to do that… as well as everything else, unlike now.
I loved the packets, with the lush bright cherries and the old-fashioned, exotic design of the ginger box that never seemed to update its slogan on the side – “a delicious sweetmeat, and after dinner aid to digestion”. Of course people had long stopped treating the product as an unusual, interesting dessert on its own, except maybe on Christmas time platters.
Like most kids I was constantly cutting bits of the boxes out to use for scrapbooks, collages and stuff when they were finished with… or sometimes even before. Cue parents yelling “WHO has been at this AGAIN?”

Front of a box for dried apple slices, probably dates from the mid-late 1950s. The artwork matches a label for Crest canned pie fruit which was in production about 1959.
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These images were lent to me for use by an Auckland historian who had previously worked in the industry for quite a a number of years (first at Butland, then at Heinz Watties), saw the blog and contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in some of the things that he had. It’s one of those moments that you live for when you do this sort of work. So of course I immediately said YES, as I had been wanting to get my hands on these for ages. I sort of remembered most of these in the back of my mind somewhere but it was a bit blurry at this point in time – and I had been longing to see them and take a trip down memory lane. Just as when I posted on Jay Tee patty pans back in March 2011:

https://longwhitekid.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/in-my-cups/

the minute I clapped my peepers on them it was an immediate sensory journey back in time. That’s true nostalgia.

Goldpack cake fruit, 1945
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I found an ad placed in the Auckland Star of 1929 where Goldpack Products of Rutland Street, Auckland central are advertising for “two girls, about 18”, and also a “respectable youth wanted”.  proving that they were already established and had at least one product by then. Goldpack tinned pears were on the market in 1930 until at least 1933 in 1 lb and bulk 22 lb tins,  by 1932 clover honey was for sale in bulk, and also in 1 lb wax pots – and ginger also in the stores in two different size packets; and it’s only by that year that archive dates indicate that it was formally registered as a business. Goldpack as a trademark came much later in 1935, when according to company literature, preserved lemon peel and cherries were rolling off the factory line for the first time in addition to the other products .

In 1938 the first mixed fruit product sold by individual box came out. Jack Butland was one of only two agents in New Zealand at the time who exclusively imported Australian dried fruit (the only other contenders I can think of are Sanitarium, Tasti Products which was established in 1932 and still going today, or the popular Celopak range from Wilson Foods Ltd). The sultanas, raisins and currants (and probably everything else in the range) were supplied to businesses in bulk, which, before the days of widespread self service meant your goods were divvied out by the grocer at your order – the usual procedure of that time.

Through the 1930s, ads were placed to dispense of “oak barrels, ex factory, 25 gallons, suitable (for) brewing, any quantity”. These were clearly what the preserved ginger was imported in either in syrup and then crystallised in the factory, or arriving as is and sorted into packets. This one was placed in 1938.
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Clearly tinned fruit and honey dropped by the wayside early on in the game. In 1945 the business was still registered at Rutland street, advertised as “a new, light and airy factory” – but at some point it moved to the corner of Newton Road and St Benedicts Street, in Eden Terrace (perhaps while the new Rutland Street factory was constructed).

Front of a box for crystallised cherries, probably dates from the late 1950s-early 1960s.  
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I don’t think much in the way of new products was added to this roster until the 1950s when presumably dried apple slices were tacked on ; I have posted the box front here. The only other example I have ever seen is in the General Store collection of the Ferrymead Heritage Park in Christchurch.

Clover honey, advertised in the Evening Post,April 1932

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By the 1960s Goldpack was producing preserved ginger, maraschino-style cherries by the jar to cater to the era of the still-existent cocktail hour, cake fruit mixture and crystallised cherries. I have a record of mixed peel being added in the 1970s although no doubt it was introduced much earlier since it was considered a cooking staple.

This curry probably replaced the Crest brand, possibly late 1960s

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A stock list of the whole range in late 1988 shows glacé cherries, maraschino cherries, mixed peel, crystallised ginger, diced ginger, whole and broken cherries, cocktail cherries, and a product named Red Cherrylike, which I am advised was made from coloured Mangolds, something I’d never heard of so I went exploring and, well – I learned something new, which is, while akin to huge white turnips – there’s nothing uninteresting about them.

Ginger box, in 1987

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The Mangerlwurzel, also known as the Fodder Beet (and as the Mango in nineteenth century America) began to be cultivated in the 1600s to feed cattle in the winter. Tough and sweet, but not fibrous, they are ideal to cut into shapes which dyed and flavoured – serve well as a cherry substitute. Mangelwurzel Hurling competitions are an old British tradition ( which continues today in the village of Sherston). They are also traditionally used to brew an alcoholic beverage. Knowing what I do of the British I would say the former was invented after over-imbibing of that latter.

A very rough illustration of the  crystallised ginger box, nevertheless it clearly shows the earliest incarnation of this product, from a Farmer’s ad of November 1929.

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Front of cake fruit box, possibly early 1960s

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Mangolds (also sold as their own product, Red Cherrylike, in bulk) were used as a substitute in the cheaper brand of cake fruit on the market also by Butland called Sunny Valley which was packaged in a poly bag; and marketed under a subsidiary name to give the impression that Butland didn’t have a complete stranglehold on the premium market. Whereas Goldpack, considered the choice brand, always had real (broken) glacé cherries in the mixture and was presented in a cardboard carton.

Most of the Goldpack range from a salesman’s portfolio, late 1980s.

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The agency duopoly on Australian dried fruits imported into New Zealand finished up in the late 1960’s when three others were introduced. These, now five, agents split up the country’s market into wholesalers for which each could exclusively supply at the same fixed price. Peter Michel says: ”I was a salesman for Butland selling the dried fruit in the mid 1970s to the wholesalers and merchants around the North Island. I think that none of my customers from then exist now. It was a very cosy arrangement that would be impossible to replicate today”.

Cocktail cherries by the jar, late 1980s – although – this label looks like it had not been updated for quite some time.

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I remember Goldpack Indian curry powder, pictured here from the late 1970s or early 1980s. I don’t know if there were other spices and herbs in the range at that time besides this. This product would likely have been a way for Butland to keep their former Crest curry powder in the marketplace after they had disposed of most their other significant interests to rival companies (canned goods like Crest Fine Foods, Blue Bonnet and Craig’s; and dairy products including Chesdale, Dixibell, and Dairylea to name some of the huge ones, although there were many more small brands with one or two products in the lines such as teas, condiments, personal products, etc).

“Gold Pack” (sic) Bartlett Pears  for sale at Woolworths in a 1 lb size, Evening Post, June 1933.

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This mixed peel box was in use from the late 1970s-late 1980s.

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The Butland story is quite a big one as a major, innovative New Zealand foodstuffs company in the second half of the twentieth century, which I briefly touched on when I wrote a fairly “low fat” post on Chesdale cheese back in December 2011 here:

https://longwhitekid.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/an-elaborate-process/

and as such I will save it for another chapter later on, because I reckon there’s at least two decent sized articles on that topic.

This mixed glace cherries box was in use from the late 1970s-late 1980s.

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By the 1980s Goldpack had moved to a division of Butland’s factory premises in Penrose. Kraft bought the business, including Goldpack, outright from Butland in 1989; they had owned 49% of the company for the eight years previous. When the factory moved from 644 Great South Rd in Penrose to 16 Dalgety Drive in Wiri, Manukau around 1991-1992, the brand was discontinued for good.

Label from maraschino cherries jar,  dates from the mid 1950s.

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“Goldpack Supreme Pudding” and “Goldpack Christmas Cake” are recipes still used today that are based on the brand’s mixed fruit in particular; although of course the ingredient is now substituted. I wouldn’t call them Kiwi classics (yet) but it’s an instance of how a much-loved brand enters the common vernacular and lodges long after the product is but a pleasant memory of hours spent in warm kitchens making sweet treats for special events – or just for pleasure.

This ginger box features a competition in the late 1970s-early 1980s.

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Branded with a K: Kirkpatrick’s Canny Colossus

It has taken me months on and off to find the material and finish off this recreation of a “K” jam label from a photo. Creating the fruit illustration was complicated and difficult. I believe it dates from the late 1920s- early 1930s.
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“K” brand was one of the longest lasting, and most popular product lines to come out of New Zealand. You probably haven’t heard of it, and it is true that it has been long forgotten since it shut up shop at the beginning of the 1970s – but it lasted ninety years in the cupboards and on the tables of Kiwi households.

A later version of the label above, probably late 1940s-early 1950s era. Photo courtesy of  Trade Me member Shakaya. 
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S. Kirkpatrick & Company was established in Nelson, “the fruit, hops and flower garden of New Zealand”, in 1881 where it came to be the most important business in the district – as its major employer. The firm’s biggest enterprise was jam, and following that canned fruit, vegetables and meat, and such was its impact – that it had a marked effect on the geographical nature of agriculture in the region, as well as other industries such as fishing. The business was quickly producing 1,000 units a day using up all those tons of pesky wasted fruit that local producers just couldn’t offload. It wasn’t long before the ‘K’ Brand of jam in its colourful label was recognised throughout Australasia.

Custard Powder and Egg Powder, Nelson Evening Mail, June 1905.
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Samuel Kirkpatrick was born in County Down, Ireland, between 1853 and 1854, where he went to school in Newry. After graduating from Walton College, Liverpool he spent five years with a wholesale food merchant learning the ropes. Kirkpatrick then emigrated to the U.S. for some years – working for tea wholesalers in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In 1876 his entree to future success came with his removal to California where he worked in two large fruit canneries in San Francisco (in what capacity this work was exactly, I am unsure).

Teenage workers stir jam pans inside the “K” Factory. Image courtesy of Nelson Provincial Museum, F. N. Jones Collection, Reference 6×8 29
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Sources seem to differ on the date – but it seems Kirkpatrick probably arrived in New Zealand in 1878 and worked as a travelling salesperson for merchants and commission agents Renshaw, Denniston and Co, in Dunedin, through 1879. They sold farming equipment such as reapers and binders , as well as more workaday items from cornsacks to paint and wire. They were also agents for various loans, marine and fire insurance (the partnership dissolved by March 1880).

S. Kirkpatrick and Co. Ltd business letterhead, Courtesy of the Hocken Archives and Manuscripts collection, ref UN-023/144
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However Kirkpatrick, with his experience in agency, sales, foodstuffs and the canning industry together had his sights set higher. He could see the raw potential of the Nelson area with it’s ideal fruit-growing temperament – and it wasn’t long before he contacted a group he had heard had a similar idea and were investigating the establishment of a fruit processing plant in the area.

“K” multi-purpose canned meat label, circa 1900. Image courtesy of the Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref Eph-F-MEAT-Gear-130
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Kirkpatrick became not only a significant shareholder, but struck a deal to manage what was to be known as the Nelson Jam and Fruit Processing Company. He leased a former textile mill in Bridge Street as premises, from the Webley Brothers who had a company named ” Webley’s Nelson Cloth“. They had gone out of business due to competition amongst manufacturers and Kirkpatrick emptied the buildings offloading all the equipment to Kaiapoi Woollen Mills. Supposedly this occurred in 1876, but I’m guessing the date quoted is wrong, since firstly Kirkpatrick was documented working in the U.S. at the time, and also RD & Co were advertising sub-agent positions in 1878 – so that data seems to back up that he started working for them then – and not earlier.

He returned to Britain the following year to arrange the shipment of an entire canning plant to set up in the new factory . He brought back with him his aunt , and his mother who was now widowed.
From the 1880s a large variety of jams, conserves, jellies and marmalades were produced in 1 pound and 2 pound stone jars. They also produced the preserves in glass jars, perhaps a bit later on. In the 1890s preserves were also available in 1lb, 2lb, and 7lb tins and they added that Kiwi classic lemon cheese to the roster. They were also marketing coffee under their own company moniker – although generally they were using the “K” label for almost everything at this point.

“K” marmalade advert, New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, August 1903

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Production had doubled by 1896, and the current factory buildings now being insufficient to cope with demand, Kirkpatrick purchased land at the corner of Gloucester and Vanguard streets for a new factory – in which he installed the most modern and efficient machinery and fittings of the time. His marriage of this same year lasted a very short time when his wife died from Tuberculosis by 1899. However at this point he was buried in work – with significant expansion of the buildings constructed to accommodate rapid growth, the company now had “the largest wooden building in the colony” and its own can making and printing plants – each can that came out of the factory was made and labelled by hand. Eventually the premises covered about 30,000 square feet.

“K ” Brand jam jar, date unknown – I am guessing 1920s. Photo courtesy of the Mataura & Districts Historical Society Incorporated collection.
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The company now branched out into coffee under the ” K” brand as well as spices – having bought the business of Anderson & Son, Wellington. “Jumbo” was a Kirkpatrick baking powder label of the 1900s that was acquired as part of the package with the Anderson transaction – who had previously sold the patent, trademark, and all the machinery to a coffee and spice merchant David Owers of Timaru in 1893. Somehow it made its way back to the original owners who sweetened the deal by including it, however even though heavily advertised by the end of the decade it seems to have been dropped from the list of products.

 Competition campaign by the Charles Haines agency, Hawera & Normanby Star, March 1923

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The business continued to grow rapidly and by 1901 the factory was employing 60 individuals full-time just in the off-season – and double during the busy period. Kirkpatrick had a concern not only with hygiene, but with good working conditions for his employees – which earned him great respect. “It is an interesting sight to see thirty or forty girls, neatly dressed, and in harmony with the general cleanliness of the whole establishment, picking and sorting the fruit with a quickness, which to the uninitiated must seem incredible. A happy feeling evidently exists between the girls and their employer, to judge by the contented faces the visitor sees around him”.
Kirkpatrick was described as a neat and “dapper man with a retiring disposition”. However for all his concern of his workers and their comfort – as well as his receding temperament it seems he was near in matters of quite insignificant things, and had no hesitation to voice his concerns; There is a letter in existence from Kirkpatrick written in 1917 when he was no doubt already rich. He writes to a handkerchief company complaining that there were only eleven handkerchiefs in the pack of twelve that he purchased and could they please reimburse him or replace the missing one.

Advertising for various “K ” products, date unknown but likely late 1890s-early 1900s. Note missing text which probably said “your grocer sells them.”
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Now with a large range of preserves, canned fruits, vegetables and meats (including pig’s feet in jelly, lobster, brawn, Irish Stew, ox and sheep tongue, Scotch haggis, boiled fowl, and curried rabbit to name a few) – In the decade of the 1900s the product range expanded in a massive way as follows: fruit mincemeat, honey, raspberry and table vinegar, pie fruits, poultry tonic, salad cream, tomato sauce, “K” Sauce, mushroom ketchup, pickles, condiments, curry powder, custard powder (six flavours), baking powder and egg powder, bird seed, Wheatena (presumably a product similar to Maizena and Creamota, to be used for both cooking and breakfast cereal) plum puddings, potted meats, ground rice, pea flour , pea meal and wheatmeal, linseed, arrowroot, spiced sausage flour, icing and castor sugar, desiccated coconut, cream of tartar, bicarbonate soda, citric and tartaric acid, carbonated ammonia, starch glaze, pickling spice, beef tea, dried herbs, hops, pickles, and boracic acid. “New lines are constantly being added”, noted an article of 1906, – such as gravy browning and tomato chutney in the 1910s.

Jumbo was a short-lived Kirkpatrick foray that had been around for a decade with two previous owners, before it came into their possession. From the Nelson Evening Mail, August 1900
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Kirkpatrick & Co. also acted as agents for a variety of international products such as Nestlé, Peters, and Kohler’s chocolates, Henderson’s sweets by  James Stedman of Sydney (later better known as Sweetacres) as well as Faulding’s products like eucalyptus extract., cloudy ammonia, and olive oil.

Another children’s competition campaign of 1922, again by Kirkpatrick’s preferred advertising agency – Haines.
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In 1904 Kirkpatrick acquired The Nelson Fish Company – a producer of smoked, chilled and frozen fish which was packed in pumice and sent far and wide. In prime position on the edge of the Nelson harbour, the large, hygienic white premises also did a roaring trade in ice.

The “K” Factory,  October 1900 from the Auckland Weekly News. Courtesy of Auckland Council Heritage Images, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19001012-4-6
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Now in its heydays, the Kirkpatrick enterprise was during this period apparently the biggest canning and jam factory in Australia and New Zealand combined.

“K” spag with cheese had been around since at least the 1930s, but these  probably date from the early 1950s era. Photo courtesy of Trade Me member Shakaya.
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Kirkpatrick in his spare time was quite the sports enthusiast with a particular fondness for the game of hockey, and eventually became president of the Nelson Association. In 1924 he founded and first presented the silver ‘K’ Cup as the trophy for women’s hockey. He was a Freemason and held the rank of deputy grand master of the District Grand Lodge of Westland and Nelson. Like many foodstuffs industry bigwigs such as Barker (Four Square) and Dustin (Buttermaid), who found that wider power came with industrial clout – he also stepped into the public eye via favoured community organisations, and inevitably into the more political arena serving a term as a city councillor from 1898.

“K” advertising blotters issued in 1925. Original photo used for composite is courtesy of Graham Bulman.
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He died in 1925 and the Henry Jones Co-op Ltd purchased the company (an Australian company founded by Henry Michael Jones, famous for the IXL brand which also had with an extensive range of food processing plants in New Zealand cities as well as Tasmania and Melbourne). In 1913, Kirkpatrick had made a grab for the financially-troubled Frimley brand so this was also part of the takeover. At some point in the late 1930s it was passed from Henry Jones to Wattie’s – one of their earliest acquisitions – if not the first in a long list of brands they snapped up to eventually become number one. I covered the Frimley brand in brief here :

https://longwhitekid.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/saucing-material/

The “K” Factory in October 1964, just after news of the Wattie’s takeover. From the Nelson Photo News. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Nelson Library Inc.
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In the 1920s ads for tomato soup, Xmas puddings and a product named “Musto” (a spice base mix for making piccalilli and chow chow, later made by Trent’s, The NZ Coffee and Spice Co Ltd,  under their Good Cook line) appear in newspapers as well as on other advertising like blotters. The 1930s saw canned spaghetti in tomato sauce, or with added cheese; baked beans, vegetable soup, and that good old depression staple pork & beans. Things took a more exotic turn with loganberries, dessert raspberries, and diced fruit salad on offer. By this time fruit and vegetable products on sale under the “K” label were in the dozens.

Famous Wellington grocery store and delicatessen Fuller-Fulton advertising Kirkpatrick Soups. Evening Post, June 1935
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“Imperial” was a subsidiary brand trademarked in 1909 and lasted well into the 1930s. Although it was registered to cover just about every category of product under “K”, it seems it may only have ever been produced as canned jam. Still – it was around for a good quarter century so can be deemed successful.

IGA stores advertising, circa late 1950s-early 1960s.
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According to IPONZ, It seems as if the Crest brand (almost unknown now, but during the 1950s it was in fact far bigger than Wattie’s) also came under the auspices of Kirkpatrick & Co while it was under ownership of  the Henry Jones company. After being passed from behemoth Butland Industries to Unilever, it was a very short time before it was sold on again – seemingly a year or so. For just a few months in 1960 the company had some sort of joint arrangement with Wattie’s over the brand – which was over by November of that year when all the categories were re-registered solely to Heinz Watties.

An event at the Kirkpatrick family home, Nelson. Provenance and year of photo unknown, but looks to be late 1920s-early 1930s judging by the costume styles.
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In 1964, Wattie’s took over S. Kirkpatrick & Co., Ltd., as well as Thompson & Hills Ltd – now both subsidiaries of The Henry Jones Co-op Ltd in the same factory. So at this point the round-up included OAK, Playtime, and “K” brands. By 1971 they had dismantled the brand and shut down the Nelson factory which was producing all of these labels as well as, of course, a number of Wattie’s products and Watties-owned brands by this point in time.

Known as Kirkpatrick House for well over 70 years, the home served as a charitable girl’s boarding house and then a backpackers.  Photographed in 2009, it still stands in Mount Street as part of a new estate.
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By the end of the 1960s “K” jam and soup had lasted the whole distance, with the last record of product I have seen, being of marmalade in the final year of business. But sadly that was the end for the Kirkpatrick name as far as foodstuffs (as well as Thompson & Hills’ Playtime Jam – which had been around since at least the 1920s).

“K” jam label from my personal collection, circa mid-late 1960s
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The factory site was eventually demolished to construct a New World supermarket – in a somewhat ironic turn a Foodstuffs NZ Ltd – initiated chain built on the very spot where founding father of Four Square,  J. Heaton Barker had worked for Samuel Kirkpatrick up until 1901 (I covered this in my previous article).

“K” soup label from my personal collection, circa mid-late 1960s
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The family residence in Mount Street was called Kirkpatrick House ( later Centennial Kirkpatrick House ), and still presides high on the steep hill looking down to the factory site; it can be easily seen from the supermarket parking lot. It had been left by Kirkpatrick in his will along with a substantial monetary bequest to provide a roof for daughters of deceased Freemasons who needed somewhere to stay when they came from rural areas and surrounds, to finish their education at Nelson College for Girls (eventually anyone sponsored by a Masonic organisation was eligible). Perhaps they also worked in the factory, especially during peak season – it’s highly likely as the “K’ factory was always short-staffed. Hundreds boarded there over a seventy year period until the late 1990s when it became a hostel – the Club Nelson Backpackers. The house was sold off as one of several lots of land in late 2011, part of what is now an “eco” housing estate project .

Marmalade advert, Evening Post, July 1911.
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Nearly ninety years later, his estate still sponsors girls to board at the college’s in-house accommodation. Samuel Kirkpatrick played a major role in the Nelson district’s development, through his fostering of agriculture, horticulture , significant employment of labour – but also charitable acts which have become a lasting legacy.

A Miss Bush in a rather unfortunate outfit advertising Kirkpatrick & Co’s strawberry and raspberry jams, as well as orange marmalade, around 1898. Image courtesy of the Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection, Reference: 62826.

Postscript June 2014: When I wrote and posted this article, I am not sure how aware I was that William and Frederick Tyree, the photographers, were my great-aunt’s uncles. Never expecting to have even a tentative connection to anything I research, I was nevertheless quite pleased to discover this family connection.

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Addendum Sept 2012: This label just in from a British dealer. I have never seen this before and I am guessing it dates somewhere around 1900s-1910s. Why would a previously unseen-for-sale-in-the-Anipodes label end up in the U.K., one might ask? 

This may be the answer, in an ad from a Grocer’s Review magazine of 1948 which shows the can in one of the photos at the top of the post. By accounts, “K” had quite a market not only in Australia, but made it as far as Britain as well.  Image courtesy of Mike Davidson, who scrounged it up from his magazine collection especially for me. 

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Addendum early Jan 2013: I found this ad for the Musto product by S. Kirkpatrick & Co, April 1921. This was part of a series from a campaign by the Charles Haines agency for the “K” brand.