Hokey Information: Poking at History

Newjoy Ice Cream sandwich board from a dairy showing products of the time. Painted by Tyrell & Holmes, 1958, courtesy of  and  © D. R. Murray of Built In Dunedin blog at  http://builtindunedin.com/

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Hokey Pokey ice cream. A national icon of foodstuffs, and officially the country’s favourite flavour next to (surprisingly) vanilla, in a land where the citizens have the highest consumption of ice cream per capita globally- sitting at well over twenty litres per annum, per person – even beating out the entire of the U.S. An amazing statistic really.
So who invented it? It’s a very good question, actually. Next to the Pavlova debate, it may be the number one most hotly contested issue of that genre.
Hokey Pokey, the confectionery, was apparently around quite some time as an individual confectionery product before it made it into ice cream form.

A close-up of William Hatton’s 1896 patent paperwork for Hokey Pokey, Archives New Zealand.

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Of course the famous fact about Hokey Pokey is that it was patented by a man named William Hatton, a manufacturer and confectioner from Dunedin, in March 1896:
A mixture of about 20 to 30 pounds of sugar and five to ten pounds of glucose is boiled with a little water to a degree not exceeding 400 degrees Fahrenheit; and then from 2 to 3 ounces of Carbonate of Soda is added causing the mixture to froth and become light. It is then poured out and moulded into any desired shape.
The record lies within Archives New Zealand where they consider it one of the jewels in the Kiwiana crown. They did a short piece on it here:

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“The invention of Hokey Pokey signifies how food is intimately related to our sense of identity and what it means to be a New Zealander”, says Greg Goulding , the Chief Archivist and General Manager.

Tin sign advertising Papatoetoe concern Meadow Gold which took over Snowflake in 1955. This sign probably early 1960s.

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Hatton may have patented the name and method, but he certainly didn’t invent it. I managed to locate records of Hokey Pokey being sold as confectionery new Zealand quite some time earlier than that – it was being offered as early as 1892 – by the Tyrell stores, owned by King and Co. It seems to have been in vogue as a novelty for a decade or so, and then doesn’t start re-appearing as a sweet until the 1920s.

Griffins Hokey Pokey Cream biscuits photographed  by Kniven & Co  for Woolworths N.Z. Ltd., Alexander Turnbull Library collection , Ref: 1/2-210966-F

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 None of these references of course show exactly what the product looked like or even describe it, however the earliest descriptions of commercial product refer to hunks, lumps or slabs – and that’s mostly in the late 1920s-early 1930s. The earliest visual I have is 1932 by MacDuffs. It was a chocolate coated bar and what would closely resemble a Crunchie, or Violet Crumble in Australia today; perhaps a bit heftier. Earlier mentions describing it as chocolate-coated hunks or lumps would resemble what’s sold today as “Honeycomb.”

Tip-Top TT-2, courtesy of Fonterra’s Tip-Top archives.

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Although Professor Helen Leach, who is a culinary anthropologist at Otago University (and wrote the book “The Pavlova Story” on the famous debate over the dessert) at the time she was quoted (2010) says that the earliest recipe she could find was 1916. However, The Auckland Star newspaper’s confectioner offered a cookbook including a Hokey Pokey recipe in 1895.

A picture of William Hatton’s 1896 patent paperwork for Hokey Pokey, Archives New Zealand.

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I don’t doubt that putting candy pieces in ice cream was an old idea. Hokey Pokey ice cream can generally be described as plain vanilla with small lumps of what is commonly known as honeycomb toffee distributed throughout it. Jeri Quinzio, a food historian, says that the origins of Hokey Pokey ice cream are rather simple and consisted of a cake of plain ice cream proffered by street vendors which was sliced to order and served wrapped in a piece of paper. Often the ice cream was layered in three flavours (what is commonly known as Neapolitan today) but this was not a hard and fast rule. It’s also quite likely that variations had small pieces of toffee or candy, and other ingredients mixed in the plain or layered base – a little like Cassata. According to The Encyclopaedia of Food, 1923, which was published in New York, Hokey Pokey is “a term applied to mixed colours and flavours of ice cream in cake form”.

MacDuffs Stores confectionery, Hokey Pokey Tablet, November 1932.

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And indeed it is thought that the origins of the name may be Italian and come from one of two phrases – “oh che poco” (oh how little) or “ecco un poco” (here is a little piece). This does make some sense, since that the term Hokey Pokey is also thought to derive from a song that was used by Italian street vendors who used to sing it in order to hawk their wares in 19th century Britain and America – and came to be known as “Hokey Pokey Men” ( and thus, the carts came to be known as Hokey Pokey Barrows). Another theory is that the vendors would yell “Ecce pocce”, which means something similar to “Get it here, it’s cold”, in Italian and this evolved into the name “Hokey Pokey”. After all, it was the Italians (and French) that really started making what we now know as ice cream in the late 1600s.

A recreation of Hokey Pokey in it’s original form; in the C19th it was a simple slice served wrapped in paper, often a tri flavour creation. Courtesy of Ivan Day from a fantatsic blog “Food History Jottings” at  foodhistorjottings.blogspot.com.au

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However “The Hokey Pokey” was a song (and dance) was inspired by the sweet treat, not the other way around, , allegedly written by bandleader Al Tabor in 1940, the idea came from an ice cream vendor whom Tabor had heard as a boy, calling out, “Hokey pokey, penny a lump. Have a lick, make you jump”.

Evening Post, December 1927.

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Apparently, the story goes that Hokey Pokey in ice cream form was first made by a Papatoetoe company in the 1940s. This alleged fact has been widely quoted by various, but the only source I could find giving credit was Christchurch City library which indicates the information as being from Richard Wolfe and Stephen Barnett’s 2002 book “100 years of Kiwiana.” CCL’s page on Kiwi Classics goes on to say “…peculiar to New Zealand is hokey-pokey (sic), a blend of vanilla base with pieces of toffee. Made famous by Tip Top, it was first sold by the Meadow Gold Ice Cream Company of Papatoetoe, Auckland, in the 1940s. The idea of adding toffee wasn’t new, but the distinctive taste was unique.” Further to that, the “100% New Zealand” website, by Tourism New Zealand, claims that it was “… first sold in 1940 (but doesn’t say by whom), Hokey Pokey became a national favourite when the Tip-Top Ice Cream company began heavily marketing it in the 1950s…” Yet again the source of this information isn’t quoted.

MacDuff’s Stores confectionery, Evening Post, September 1933.

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In fact Meadow Gold (which had a logo rather like Borden’s “Elsie the Cow”) didn’t exist until 1955. The Snowflake ice cream factory was once situated just to the south of the block of shops on the corner of Great South Road and Caspar Road, Papatoetoe. The factory was run by W.G. Lunn during the 1940s, then Rita and George Aagard took over the business in 1949, selling it to Meadow Gold after they were done after just six years. So technically, Meadow Gold could not have come out with it in the 1940s.
Of course, everyone wants to stake their claim, be “the person that had the idea” – and take the title of the one who invented this beloved dessert. Tip-Top’s claim is fairly dubious, and there is no information on Meadow Gold let alone anything to back that claim up. The janky dates also don’t fare well at all.

A screen shot of William Hatton’s method description in his patent, 1896, Archives New Zealand

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A more detailed explanation comes from descendants of Peter Pan ice cream’s founder T.C. Denne, who claim that they were possibly the first to make Hokey Pokey, not Meadow Gold– and they actually have a written description of how it was first made – “In the early days, The hokey-pokey was manually crushed into large chunks and hand-spooned into the ice cream during the churning process. Later the engineers developed machinery which crushed and blended the hokey pokey into the ice cream”.

 Yvonne Sutton as well as John Denne distinctly remember it already being made by the mid-1950s: “My understanding is, it was Peter Pan that invented the Hokey Pokey ice cream. I’m pretty sure that’s correct. It was a very exacting procedure because you have a porous, soft sugary product inside an ice cream – and to stop the Hokey Pokey from melting was really a technique that was very valuable – and my understanding is that Peter Pan began it”, says John. Yvonne remembers: “I think it was an original Peter Pan product – first made – and superior to all later versions.  Of course I’m somewhat biased. I well remember it  being made by Trevor Franklin in a large steam jacketed ‘kettle,’  and how the golden sugary mix frothed up when the baking soda was put in. It was poured hot into large, shallow, cut down milk powder tins, and chilled. When cold, it  was dropped in big chunks into an ingenious crusher, built by engineer Gordon Brogden, then shovelled generously by hand into the ice cream. Delectable!”

So here we have some verifiable company information, a detailed description, a general date and eyewitnesses.

Modern version of the Tip-Top tub showing the new toffee balls that recently replaced smashed “kibble”.

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In the scheme of things they are a contender for the title however here is another, likely better one: Brian Simon, previous owner of both Deep South Ice Cream Ltd and Manda Ice Cream companies in Invercargill. Now in his seventies, he himself claims to have made the first Hokey Pokey ice cream at a Dunedin company in 1953:
“I was 18 and working in my father’s ice cream factory Newjoy Ice Cream Co., and we thought about different flavours (we could do). I was reading in an American magazine about what they were making there and one was candy ice cream, and I thought “well, we’ve never had one like that in New Zealand”. We had two Dutchmen working there during the daytime and then when they knocked off, they walked up the road to Cadbury’s to do the night shift. One day I asked them – “what are you doing there?” and they said “Oh, we’re making Crunchie bars”. So I said “do they have any broken Hokey Pokey?”and they said “yes, they’ve got quite a bit” and I said “well can you put me in touch with the man that I can talk to about buying some?” So we got some and I started sprinkling it into the ice cream. And that’s how we first made ice cream with Hokey Pokey in it and it became quite popular. Our opposition at the time was Crystal Ice Cream in Dunedin and they started doing it too – and it just sort of blossomed from there.

Auckland Star newspaper’s  cook book with Hokey Pokey recipe of January 1895 far predates Prof. Helen Leach’s 1916 find.

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But I have seen in a book that somebody showed me, that Tip-Top claim to be the first ones to do it in 1943 or 1944 and I said “oh, that’s bullshit”.  At that time we were on sugar rationing , as well as petrol rationing , because it was World War Two and you just couldn’t get the sugar to do those sort of things. So I don’t think that is what really happened. So it was the broken pieces of Crunchie bars – and eventually Cadbury’s actually made special stuff for us because we were using so much of it, they put it in eleven pound bags and we bought it in pallet lots. When we bring on a new flavour we don’t know how it’s going to go, and so we didn’t get too excited about Hokey Pokey at the time. When the opposition saw that we were selling a lot of it they decided to have a go at it. I haven’t got a message for Tip-Top; they are the market leaders and they seem to have claimed that it was theirs since during the war, well I don’t know where they got their sugar from!”.

Hokey Pokey biscuits from a vintage Edmond’s Sure To Rise cookbook.

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It is a fact that during WWII years, that manufacturers were only allowed to use fifty percent of their usual sugar. On top of that, a 25% sales tax was imposed on products so many manufacturers such as Cadbury decided to cancel most of their confectionery lines and put all their sugar into chocolate bars for the war effort.

The earliest verification I have of Tip-Top selling Hokey Pokey are both in the 1950s, both in bulk, and in quart boxes. However the dates further than the general decade are not more specific. Brian Simon is described by a colleague as “a no-nonsense kind of guy”, and his account does sound believable. This could be backed up by Cadbury’s and other witnesses of the time if, indeed, any are still alive. By his account Crunchie Bars were on the market in NZ around in the early fifties, and they were being made from the late 1920’s in the UK first by Fry and then Cadbury Fry when they merged (and then Cadbury Fry merged with NZ’s Hudson in 1930). They were present in Australia by 1929.

Here’s the problem: Ted Barringer, who was sent from Britain in 1952 to work on sales and marketing, and eventually became managing director of Cadbury Fry Hudson for 17 years, specifically remembers working up the almost non-existent  novelty line and sending for the successful Crunchie recipe and process from J S Fry at Somerdale in the U.K., in 1955. By all accounts it was an instant hit in Aotearoa. Although the hand-cut method of production in New Zealand may have accounted for high breakage, they just weren’t being made before then. This probably puts Newjoy and Peter Pan back head-to-head.

It should also be noted, for the record, that Peter Pan first published their company history “Sweet Success” in 1997, a good twelve years before Simon gave his interview.

By the late 1950s to early 1960s Both Hudson’s and Griffin’s had their versions of Hokey Pokey biscuits, and Tip-Top had a Hokey Pokey TT-2, pictured here, exact dates for all are unknown – but it goes unsaid, way after the fact.

Hokey Pokey commemorated in a NZ Post “Kiwiana” stamp set of 1994.

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Nobody is going to challenge Tip-Top’s claim – and besides that “Hokey Pokey” is apparently not a registered trademark, to this day. They recently modified the recipe to use uniform honeycomb balls, from what was formerly known as “kibble” in the trade – reason being that the bigger chunks, created by hammering the toffee into pieces, would routinely clog the machinery. Combining two classics, they also released a limited edition Trumpet version – “Creamy Hokey Pokey flavoured ice cream with crunchy hokey pokey pieces, a caramel sauce centre and sprinkled with hokey pokey pieces and choc topping”, celebrating renowned Kiwi team the All Blacks, in 2011. Regardless of what Tip-Top do to it, they will never really make it their own – But besides that – evidence speaks otherwise to Hokey Pokey’s origins. Yet to materialise are dates and details that back up their implication as original creator.

There is at least the good beginnings of a story here, even if it’s one of those “ask more questions than gives answers” type of articles to start with – and hopefully more information will come to light in due course which will settle this mystery once and for all.

All content of Longwhitekid copyright Darian Zam © 2012. All rights reserved.

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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An Elaborate Process

Note: Due to repetitive theft by those who take my intellectual property from this blog without my permission, and reproduce it as merchandise for sale on sites such as Ebay, Redbubble and Trade Me,  I have now watermarked this image. If you are interested in purchasing merch of this image you can head to my personal Redbubble store.

 

I’m  excited to present this recreation of a Chesdale cheese ad. This is probably the most complex thing I have attempted so far and have put it off for a few months because I knew it was going to be hard. As I am getting more daring at my recreation work I felt I was ready to tackle this one from a blurry, bad quality picture. This took about two days of frustrating work to make; starting with designing the three individual paper labels for the cheese segments, then the foil wedge, then the six wedges in the box, and the cartoons of the family which I could hardly see properly. As well as all the fonts which had to be hand-kerned and often recreated from scratch.
This item probably dates from around 1958, and was in a promotional booklet for a company named Butland Industries which had a lot of other nice colourful ads in it showcasing their products of the moment. At the time their other hugely successful brand besides Chesdale was Crest Fine Foods (canned fruit, and vegetables, including baked beans and spaghetti – I think this brand fizzled out in the early 1970s). Later on they had Goldpack dried fruits – as well as jam brands Blue Bonnet and Craig’s which I remember well from childhood.

It was for auction a few months ago and I really wanted to grab it – unfortunately I had just missed the end of the auction. I would have paid more money by far than it sold for, too. I was so desperate to get hold of the imagery that I approached the seller and also the buyer to try and get better photos of the advertising pages – to no avail. Unfortunately that tack didn’t work out so well to say the least, so the next best thing was to just to buckle down and make it myself.

Chesdale Cheese ad, between 1926 and 1949. Ref: Eph-A-FOOD-1940s-01. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a lot of information available either about the history of the Chesdale cheese brand or about Sir Jack Butland and his company. What we do know is he was born in Hokitika in 1896 but spent most of his life based in Auckland, where he started in foodstuffs as an agent – after earlier careers in banking and sales.
He came to be considered a pioneer in food manufacturing. He founded J. R. Butland Pty Ltd in 1922, NZ Cheese four years later in 1926, and Butland Industries proper in 1949. I know that Crest was launched in 1956 – and that the packaging had changed by 1961 – so this booklet dates from some time in between. I conject on the earlier side.
In the days before widespread refrigeration, traditional cheeses sweated, went oily, cracked, and quickly went stale. Jack Butland combated this problem by experimenting with additives, and found that adding amounts of sodium or potassium phosphate would make the cheese smooth textured and spreadable – and it would actually keep well, remaining moist and hygienic.

Chesdale Cheese, between 1949 and 1951. From cover of Four Square Stores promotional jigsaw puzzle envelope.  Ref: Eph-F-GAMES-1950s-05-cover. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

He was obviously already successful, but his was his big breakthrough. He sold it wrapped in aluminium foil, in an 8 ounce cardboard carton and later in disc shaped boxes as per the ad.

He was eventually knighted mainly for his significant philanthropic contributions some time before he passed away in 1982.
Chesdale was sold to Kraft in 1981 and then sold to Heinz Wattie in 1995. It currently is owned by New Zealand Milk Brands Limited. Chesdale is still in production today, however it also has an enormous market in the Middle East.
Chesdale is of course now considered an icon of Kiwiana, mostly for the famous Ches and Dale character TV commercials – of course they came much later in around 1968, created by advertising agency Dormer Beck -which I have a long story coming up on next week, so I will cover it in more depth then.

Tumbler For Ya

Advertisement  for Betta peanut butter, from January  1955 , publication  unknown

Mike Davidson is one of the better known Kiwiana collectors around or rather, he is one of the handful that choose to be known. As such, he actually shares his passion for collecting the genre with others . His moniker on Flickr is Kiwigame and you can see some of his collection of here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23778385@N07/

He also has a fairly extensive collection of New Zealand tumblers, specifically the ones that were printed with ceramic designs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23778385@N07/4862960186/in/set-72157624658220020

Plastic  tumbler  for Kraft  cheese spread, sold in NZ,  likely 1940s

Prior to the early 1950s, perhaps as far back as the thirties  there were some tumblers produced by Sanitarium and  Kraft, in colourful speckled Bakelite or plastic. They were seemingly an identical shape, bar the imprint on the base denoting the company.

From then onwards these glasses were produced, mostly by Christchurch’s  Crown Crystal Glass for Sanitarium, Chesdale, Kraft, Airborne Honey and Sunshine. Filled with product, often peanut butter, preserves and honey, they were to be reused, when the jar of whatever was in it – was finished.

Like so many accompanying gimmicks, they were issued in collectable sets to promote sales of the brand.  I do recall some of these from my childhood; I remember some of the Sanitarium bamboo designs in my grandparents’  cupboards. But I am sure that every house in the country had at least a couple so saying I remember them is stating the rather obvious; so ubiquitous were they.

Ceramic-print tumbler  for ETA peanut butter, sold in NZ,  likely late 1960s

Although clearly many more products than the few companies featured here produced glasses for popular and much loved Kiwi brands, Mike has focussed on the specifically New Zealand-founded companies. As it turns out the tumbler above ended up in Mike’s collection at auction close and he says “I found it interesting as it has “Auckland NZ”  printed on the label. Before I found this one it was assumed this series of glasses were completely Australian in origin due to the design on the glass being of Koala Bears and Australia having a long history of these glasses”.

It seems that at some point in the 1960s, likely 1962 – ETA opened operations in NZ, or licensed the brand to someone like Sanitarium. Without any public news archives available after WWII right now it’s really hard to get a picture of a lot of the history just from random ads or collectibles that turn up. I’m building a database of NZ brands, and according to what I have so far there were not that many peanut butter labels; Betta/ Sanitarium and  Tucker/Sunshine
were the main ones, and also McLaren’s which I know nothing about and may have been imported. I have ads for ETA from the 60s on. Definitely by the time I was young in the early 1970s they had a huge and well-advertised range of products in NZ.

Mike  has compiled a compendium on this page here:  http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~pinwhiz/glassindex.htm