The History of Ice Cream in New Zealand

By Chris Newey

1921 - 1930


Timeline: the 20s

Robert (Bob) Long (right) with family and Longs Ice Cream truck, Mahia, ca. 1920.
- Tauranga City Libraries Research Collections - Photo 15-056.

1921 - Harry Muschamp Waddington began making Artic Ice Cream, initially by hand churn, in his small lounge bar and restaurant in Jackson St., Petone.

1922 - Angus Keith McDonald established McDonald's Ice Cream Co., the Waikato's first ice cream manufacturing business.

Legend: McDonald's

Angus Keith McDonald established the Waikato's first ice cream manufacturing business in Hamilton in 1922 and then went on to build factories and branches in Palmerston North, Wellington, Hawera, Masterton and Auckland. McDonald's ice cream was a household name around most of the North Island, long before its American name-sake appeared on the scene. More about McDonald's ...

Model T Ford ice cream delivery van.  - NZICA archives, Frostee Digest.

12 April 1923 - a vendor, J Healey of Hokitika, was fined £2 and costs £3 17 shillings in the Magistrate's Court for selling "ice cream deficient in milk fat".

Astrella's Ice Cream advertisement,
Auckland Star, 17 February 1923

Extract from an advertisement in the Auckland Star, 24 July 1923:

Their claim for "at least 10 per cent butterfat" was scientifically based, as can be seen by the Situations Vacant advertisement that appeared in the New Zealand Herald on 27 November 1924:

Ice Cream Novelties

"Novelties" are defined as separately packaged, single-serve ice cream or frozen dessert products, such as ice cream sandwiches, ice blocks and ice creams on sticks. The first ice cream novelty to be sold in this country was probably the Eskimo Pie.

30 May 1924 - Manufacturing Licenses for the latest ice cream craze from America, the Eskimo Pie, were advertised in Wellington's Evening Post. The product had been patented by the Eskimo Pie Corporation, USA, and licenses were issued in New Zealand by C. B. Colby, Auckland.

Successful applicants were listed as Polar Ice Cream Coy. Ltd, Auckland district, and Boston Ice Cream Co., Wanganui:

Manufacturing Licenses issued for the manufacture of
Eskimo Pie, advertised in the Evening Post, 30 May 1924

Unfortunately, Boston Ice Cream Co. had to relinquish their license.

Meanwhile Frozen Products Ltd purchased a license for the Wellington region. In fact the company was formed in July of that year for that specific purpose.

Legend: Frosty Jack

A new company, Frozen Products, Ltd., was formed in Wellington in July 1924 "to manufacture, sell, and distribute as wholesalers and retailers the confection known as "Eskimo Pie", ice cream, and any other similar class of goods, and general incidental." Under the guidance of General Manager W. Arthur Fisher the company was manufacturing Eskimo Pies and Frosty Jack brand ice cream for the Wellington market by December that year. In November 1929, a new factory was opened at 25-29 Tennyson St, Te Aro. Frozen Products went on an acquisition spree through the 1950s and 60s, expanding into the South Island, before being taken over by the multinational Vestey Group in 1965. More about Frozen Products and Frosty Jack...

Frosty Jack Ice Cream and Eskimo Pies advertisement, Evening Post, 1930.

Legend: Eskimo Pie

Invented by Danish immigrant Christian K Nelson in the United States in 1920, and originally known as the "I-Scream Bar", the Eskimo Pie was the world's very first ice cream novelty, a chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar wrapped in foil. It was a raging success and the invention was patented by the Eskimo Pie Corporation in 1922 and franchised to other ice cream manufacturers around the world. The first New Zealand-made Eskimo Pie appeared on Thursday 18 September 1924 when Polar Ice Cream advertised that Eskimo Pie manufacture could be seen during the official opening of its new factory at Station Road, Newmarket, Auckland. Wellington's Frozen Products Ltd began manufacturing and selling Eskimo Pies in December 1924. Other manufacturers to take up licenses included Robinsons of Auckland, who would many years later pass the rights on to Tip Top. Almost a century after it first appeared in New Zealand, and despite a name change, the Eskimo Pie is still going strong. More about Eskimo Pie ...

Frosty Jack Ice Cream and Eskimo Pies advertisement, Evening Post, 1931.

18 September 1924 - Polar Ice Cream Coy. Ltd advertises that the manufacture of Eskimo Pies could be observed during the official opening of its new factory at Station Road, Newmarket, Auckland. Eskimo Pies sold for threepence (3d) each.

Frozen Products had launched their Eskimo Pie product by December that year.

The Eskimo Pie proved just as popular in New Zealand as it had been in America, and naturally resulted in imitations.

14 August 1930 - In the Dunedin Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Kennedy delivered his judgment in the action brought by Charles Bertram Colby, of Los Angeles, United States, against the Dunedin Ice Cream Manufacturing Co. (Ltd.).

Colby was seeking an injunction against the company, restraining it from the manufacture of "Royalettes", claimed to be similar to "Eskimo Pies," for which Mr Colby held the patent rights in New Zealand. Justice Kennedy ruled that the patent "could confer no monopoly rights" to either the concept of ice cream coated with chocolate, nor the manufacturing process involved. "The injunction was therefore refused, and judgment was given for the defendant against the plaintiff for £36 6s costs, and disbursements to be fixed by the Registrar."

A number of other companies around the country produced chocolate-coated ice cream bars, often unmistakeable Eskimo Pie imitations:

Arctic Ice Cream "Arctic Pie" sign, Hawkes Bay Frozen Supplies Ltd.,
signwriter Geoff Walker, Clive Square, Napier, ca. 1930.
- Salvage Place.

Aluminium foil wrapper, "Arctic Pie" ice cream bar, manufactured by Hawkes Bay
Frozen Supplies Ltd., Napier, ca. 1930.
- longwhitekid.

The Ice Cream Industry Booms

Two factors converged around this time to create a boom in ice cream manufacturing and consumption in the late 1920s.

In 1926 American Clarence Vogt's invented the continuous scraped-surface ice cream freezer, opening the way for true low-cost mass production of ice cream.

Around the same time, the first electrical domestic refrigerators began to appear on the market, allowing cheap and convenient frozen storage in the home. This in turn opened up a whole new market for "take-home" packaged ice cream.

1925 - Riversdale Dairy, owned by the the dairy-farming Norton family, began to make Snowflake brand ice cream.

Legend: Snowflake

The Norton family, dairy farmers near Greymouth, established The Riversdale Dairy in 1922 to deliver town milk, and began manufacturing Snowflake brand ice cream around 1925. Production was originally from a small shop in Ward St., Cobden, but demand was so great that in 1928 a new, larger factory was built at Coal Creek. Snowflake ice cream was a part of West Coast life for over 80 years, one of New Zealand's longest continuously operating ice cream businesses, and one of the last to source milk from its own dairy herd. More about Snowflake ...

Photo: Delivery vehicles outside the new Riversdale Dairy - Snowflake factory, 1928 (detail). - Owen Norton collection.

August 1925 - Robinson Ice Cream Company supplied 54,000 blocks of Robinson's Ice Cream to the American Fleet on its visit to Auckland, and later proudly advertised the letter of thanks that it received from one of the warships:

The Robinson Ice Cream Company Ltd had grown to become the largest manufacturer in the country. According to this 6 July 1929 news item in the Auckland Star:

" The most forcible demonstration of public opinion and appreciation of Robinson's ice cream is given by the increase shown in their turnover in seven years. Seven years ago their annual turnover was £6000. This year it is £23,000 - by far the largest in New Zealand."

Here is a description of their manufacturing process, from an Auckland Star article, 15 December 1924:

By now, ammonia was the common refrigerant in commercial refrigeration plants. Ice cream was churned in horizontal batch freezers, packed into cylindrical one-gallon, 2 and 1/2, or 5 gallon cans, and blast-frozen before being moved to storage freezers.

Distribution was by van or truck, with insulated bodies, ice cream cans packed inside canvas bags for extra insulation. Sometimes frozen brine-filled containers (like large Slikka pads) were used for extra cooling.

The Zero Ice Cream van makes a delivery, Grey Street, Hamilton, 1924.
- Ref: HCL_10448 (detail), Hamilton City Library

The growth in ice cream consumption and production was no doubt helped by the appearance of the first electrical domestic refrigerators around this time. Kelvinator, one of the first, was originally a small refrigeration plant that could be installed in an existing ice chest:

Kelvinator advertisement, New Zealand Herald, 2 December 1925.

1926 - The Perfection Ice Cream Company Ltd was established in Christchurch, with premises and factory at 300-304 Manchester Street:

The Perfection Ice Cream Co. factory, 300 Manchester St., Christchurch, 1932.
- Laurie Kench, via Owen Norton collection.

Legend: Perfection

1926 - Queen Anne ice cream was launched.

Queen Anne Ice Cream advertisement, 1929.



Original Queen Anne shopfront, Dunedin.
- Chris Gregory.

Legend: Queen Anne

Legend: Eldora

Several other significant ice cream businesses were established around this time:

Alpine (Huntly, 1928), Egmont (New Plymouth, 1929?), and New Polar (Auckland, 1929).

McDonald's Ice Cream advertisement, Evening Post, 25 February 1930.


Curly Smith with McDonald's Ice Cream delivery van, Foxton Beach, 1929.
- Foxton Historical Society: Kete Horowhenua Ref. f1999.0825

1929 - Waipukurau soft drink manufacturer T.C. Denne went into the ice cream business, launching his famous Peter Pan brand.

Legend: Peter Pan

Soft drink manufacturer Thomas Denne began to manufacture ice cream in 1929, the ice cream business eventualy outgrowing the beverage side. Both 'Denne's' and 'Peter Pan' brands were used but it was Peter Pan that became famous. When Thomas died in 1950, sons Tom and Haydn took over. The Peter Pan brand became famous around the country, right through into the 1960s, by which time it was the third-largest manufacturer in the country. Peter Pan More about Peter Pan at longwhitekid ... Memories: Peter Pan This was made by the Denne family in Waipukurau, Hawke’s Bay. Their home was over the road from the factory on Takapau Rd, SH2. They sold to Tip Top in 1970s but the name stayed around. If your family had a deep freeze in 1950s Waipuk you had to have a Peter Pan birthday cake! - Louise Lawson.

- bjubes, TradeMe

Ice Cream Manufacturers Join Forces

As the ice cream industry grew, small regional manufacturers, many family-operated, faced many problems in dealing with distribution, the dairy industry, changing technology, hygiene standards, and outdated, archaic legislation:

12 February 1927 - the Christchurch Evening Post reported that a number of manufacturers of ice cream were charged with having sold their product on Sundays. In his judgment the Magistrate said that he "was not prepared to hold that the manufacture of ice cream was a necessity."

Ice cream was not even allowed to be sold from a cart on a Sunday. In one 1928 prosecution, the judge said:

"Apparently it would be lawful for [the defendant] to sell ice creams on a Sunday if he put up an awning from his cart, and they were eaten under the awning."

The decision was made to form a national association, to help each other, and to present a united voice to the government.

The New Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers Association was incorporated in 1927.

The inaugural meeting to discuss setting up an association was held on 22 July 1927 at the Frozen Products (Frosty Jack) offices in Wellington.

First members at that first meeting were W.A. (Arthur) Fisher, Frozen Products, Wellington (instigator of the meeting, and generally regarded as the founder of the NZICA); P.H. Ferguson, Robinson Ice Cream Co., Auckland; and H. Turner, Crystal Ice Cream, Dunedin.

Proposed qualification for membership: to be manufacturers of a certified output of not less than 5,000 gallons per annum. Proposed subscription: £5:5:0 per annum.

First Chairman and President, Mr H. Turner

A constitution was soon written and the Association met for the first time as an incorporated society in March 1928, at which time it had eight members. At that meeting, the first President, Mr H. Turner of Crystal Ice Cream in Dunedin, "stressed the need for cooperation amongst manufacturers with a view to mutual assistance and support in dealing with important regulations and legislation."

1929 - Within a year the Association had its first success. The Executive persuaded the Railways Department to reduce the excessive goods rate charged for rail freighting ice cream and to allow cones to be dispatched in a single consignment with the ice cream, instead of being consigned and charged separately.

The cost savings were early proof of the Association's value in representing manufacturers collectively on matters that affected the whole industry.

A Profusion of Shapes and Flavours

In February 1929 the Ellesmere Guardian reported on a new innovation - fruit ice cream.

New Polar Ice Cream advertisement, Auckland Star, 12 December 1929

12 July 1930 - The Auckland Star reported on New Polar Ice Cream's stand at the Winter Show, where they were selling "Rainbow Blocks, Polar Bars (a chocolate-coated ice cream), Ice Cream Cakes and cartons of ices":

23 December 1930 - An item in the Auckland Star describes a new ice cream factory under construction in Pukeiti Road, Otahuhu, for the Arctic Ice Cream Company:

People enjoying Snowflake icecream in front of the Snowflake Riverdale Dairy Supplies Guy truck, at the 1930 Greymouth A&P Show.
Still from newsreel film, "The Greymouth Gazette", by L. Inkster, 1930.
- Nga Taonga Sound & Vision.

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