New Zealand - Tip Top - Tip Top delivery trucks, late 1930s. #600227 History In 1936 Albert Hayman and Len Malaghan opened their first ice cream parlour in Manners Street, Wellington, New Zealand followed in the same year by a second milk bar in Wellington, and one in Dunedin. Tip Top Ice Cream Company was registered as a manufacturing company in 1936. By 1938 Tip Top was manufacturing its own ice cream and was successfully operating stores in the lower half of the North Island, and in Nelson and Blenheim. In May 1938 Tip Top Ice Cream Company Auckland Limited was incorporated into the growing ice cream business. Due to distribution difficulties and World War II, this was operated as a completely separate company to the Wellington Tip Top. In November 1962, Hayman and Malaghan opened the biggest and most technically advanced ice cream factory in the Southern Hemisphere, built at Mount Wellington, Auckland, New Zealand. The Tip Top factory included staff houses and 20 acres (81,000 m2) of farm land overlooking the Southern Motorway and cost NZ$700,000. Prime Minister Keith Holyoake attended the opening ceremony. By 1964 the Company had expanded to such an extent that a parent company was formed, General Foods Corporation (NZ) Limited. It was rated as one of the soundest investments on the stock exchange and other companies were quick to note its potential. The Auckland Tip Top factory was originally a seasonal factory, which worked only to produce ice cream for the summer months. They sold for a shilling, and early innovations led to ice cream inventions like Topsy, Jelly Tip, FruJu and Ice Cream Sundaes, some of which are among New Zealand's iconic foods today.[citation needed] The overwhelming success of these products transformed the Mt Wellington site from a summer-centred seasonal factory into a 24-hour, 365-day operation. As demand grew over the years, 2 further plants were opened in Christchurch and Perth. The Christchurch factory was specially designed to meet the stringent export requirements of the Japanese market. Supermodel Rachel Hunter appeared for the first time on television in an advertisement for Tiptop Trumpet in the mid-1980s at 15 years of age. This advertisement was popular and helped the Tip Top brand grow even stronger in New Zealand whilst also helping to launch her career. In April 1997 Tip Top was purchased by a West Australian food processor, Peters & Browne’s Foods from Heinz Watties. This merger of Peters & Browne’s and Tip Top created the largest independent ice cream business in the Southern Hemisphere with combined sales of $550 million. On 18 June 2001 Tip Top Ice Cream became part of Fonterra Co-operative Group after Fonterra purchased the Peter and Browne’s Foods Business. In 2007 the Christchurch Factory was closed with all production moving to Auckland. In 2011 Tip Top celebrated its 75th Anniversary. In 2019 Fonterra sold Tip Top for $380 million to UK-based company Froneri, a joint venture owned by Nestlé and PAI Partners.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_Top_(ice_cream) New Zealand! New Zealand! In Praise of Kiwiana Preface - As the world grows smaller, national identities blur under an overlay of Western consumer culture. Fortunately there is an equal and opposite reaction that sees a growing concern for traditional folklore and imagery. It is to celebrate Kiwiana, the New Zealand difference', that this book has been compiled. - In the case of Kiwiana, not all of it has survived the global villagising influences of television, travel and urbanisation, but recent years have seen an increasing interest in conserving what's left. - By and large, the bits and pieces that go to make up New Zealand's popular life and customs are pretty robust – the sheer isolation of the country saw to that. The early settlers, both Polynesian and Pakeha, had only what they brought with them: anything else they had to make themselves. Independence and resilience were traits necessary for survival. - Unlike many other colonised peoples, the indigenous Maori quickly adapted to the British way of life. The resulting mix of cultures inevitably deferred to the technological superiority of the latter, but common to both groups was work, recreation and mateship. The business of living was soon, unconsciously, forging a national identity. - The first 60 years of this century were characterised by a consolidation of popular culture, all the more so in the increasingly prosperous years following the end of the Second World War. For the baby-boom generation the quarter-acre section spread like a rash across freshly scraped hills. New roads sprang up to accommodate the Minors, Prefects, Vanguards and Veloxes. For the New Zealand bloke and his sheila and obligatory 2.6 kids there was also Plunket, Buzzy Bees, Saturday rugby and an occasional pav. And perhaps, now and then a bach in which to get away from it all. - New Zealand! New Zealand! is a fond remembrance of all that. If it tends to linger over the 1950s and 1960s then it is simply because this period spanned the authors' formative years, their earliest memories. As well, those halcyon days were ones in which New Zealand was often in the limelight. Our compatriots not only knocked off the world's highest mountain, but they also established an awesome reputation on the rugby field. Less noticed by the outside world were all the details in between. While this book can be no more than a selective lucky-dip into our popular culture, it will convey to the reader the strong sense of national identity that we feel is an integral part of the everyday and the commonplace. - In recording for posterity the aspects of Kiwiana contained herein, we realised there was a certain urgency. The availability of much of the material and access to prime sources was likely to become considerably more problematic with any further passage of time: mergers and takeovers can often result in a reduced regard for business archives, while the 'user-pays' mentality in government has resulted now and then in a lower priority being given to public access to records. - We were, however, fortunate in meeting with an enthusiastic and practical response to our research. - New Zealand! New Zealand! would have been impossible without the help of a multitude of individuals, companies and organisations. Our thanks to all of you, the makers and the keepers of our popular heritage, from Buzzy Bee to Weet-Bix. STEPHEN BARNETT RICHARD WOLFE Auckland, 1989 Author: STEPHEN BARNETT & RICHARD WOLFE ISBN 0 340 485817 Click the link provided at the top to purchase the book through the MAD on New Zealand Shop - Supporting New Zealand Authors and Artists