The History of Ice Cream in New Zealand

By Chris Newey
1951 - 1960


Technology & Scale

The introduction of continuous production machinery and concurrent advances in refrigeration and refrigerated transport during the 1950s and 60s enabled ice cream to be manufactured more economically, and on a larger scale. The new technology also meant ice cream could be distributed greater distances, and at lower cost, to the point that nation-wide distribution was possible.

Tip Top Ice Cream staff loading freshly-filled cans into a blast freezer, 1950's.
- Sparrow Industrial Pictures Ltd, Auckland War Memorial Museum online collection.
Ref. PH-NEG-SP-2914[i].


Denne's Peter Pan Ice Cream refrigerated truck, early 1950's.
- Knowledge Bank.

1951 - Tip Top (Auckland) took over Peters Ice Cream (NZ) Ltd, one of its larger competitors.

In 1953 the NZ Ice Cream Manufacturers' Association could claim 49 ice cream manufacturing companies as members. However many of those were small businesses, located in towns and cities across the country. They supplied their local areas and produced their product by batch methods. Product ranges were narrow, and marketing budgets small.

As the larger manufacturers became more efficient, and more powerful, many small producers either went out of business, merged, or were taken over by the larger companies.

Many of these manufacturers were absorbed into one or other of the two Tip Top Ice Cream companies (later General Foods Corporation), which gradually expanded their operations during the 50s and 60s to become by far the country's largest ice cream manufacturer.

Legend: Brands From the Past

A large number of small regional ice cream manufacturers were victims of takeovers in the '50s and early '60s. Ice cream brands that disappeared during this period include many magical names from the past: Apex (Christchurch), Aurora (New Plymouth), Barlow's (Te Aroha), Bell's, Betta, Blue Moon (Hastings), Byers (Palmerston North), Clarke's (Petone), Coker & Mills (Blenheim), Cooke's (Auckland), Crystal (Dunedin), Eldora (Devonport), Frosty Jack (Wellington), Gates' (Wellington), Gaytime (Auckland), Glacier, Hart's (Auckland), Mays (Auckland), McDonald's (Hamilton, Palmerston North, Auckland), Meadow Gold (Auckland), Newells, Newjoy (Dunedin), Perfection (Christchurch), Peters (Auckland), Reale (Dunedin), Righton's (Whakatane), Robinson's (Auckland), Rosco (Hamilton), Royal (Dunedin), Snowdrop (Ashburton), Snowflake (Auckland), and Sunshine (Nelson). More Ice Cream Brands From The Past ...

Barlow's Ice Cream of Te Aroha, 1943 advertisement, Frostee Digest.

It wasn't just the provinces that Tip Top had in its sights - in 1952 Tip Top Ice Cream Company (Auckland) Ltd, under Bert Hayman, launched a new ice cream business in Melbourne, Australia, Toppa Ice Cream Ltd.

The Toppa brand was very successful, and the company grew to be a major player in the Victorian and Tasmanian markets, operating until 1972.

Read more about the Toppa story here.

Tip Top Ice Cream steel advertising sign, early 1950s? Featuring "Daisy" the cone.
- Steve Williams.

With its greater economies of scale, Tip Top was able to invest in the technology to produce more sophisticated water ice and ice cream stick novelties. Some of the earliest were the Topsy (chocolate-coated vanilla ice cream on a stick), and the TT2 (flavoured water ice on a stick).

1951 - the classic Kiwi stick ice cream, the Jelly Tip is born. Creamy Tip Top vanilla ice cream on a stick, tipped with a raspberry flavoured jelly, and coated with chocolate, selling for sixpence.

1954 - Tip Top launches the Strawberry Toppa - vanilla ice cream on a stick, coated with a shell of strawberry water ice.

Around this time Tip Top Ice Cream sponsored the popular science fiction radio serial "Rocky Starr".

Tip Top display promoting the serialised "radio space thriller" Rocky Starr, ca. 1955.
Flavours shown include Vanilla, Neapolitan, Rainbow, Orange Ripple, Raspberry Ripple, Dandy Candy.
- Tip Top archives.

Food or Dairy Product?

One of the bitterest and longest-running arguments with government, which directly affected matters of supply and profitability, was the relationship between ice cream manufacturers and the dairy industry.

In the '20s and '30s, the ice cream industry had unsuccessfully argued to be treated by government as part of the dairy industry, and for ice cream factories to be registered as dairy factories.

By the 1950s, however, this had all changed, in part due to the formation of the Milk Marketing Board, and government efforts to nationalise the town milk industry.

In 1944 the Milk Act was passed which provided for the ice cream industry to buy surplus butterfat from the milk treatment stations at annually negotiated prices. A levy was put in place, and tight price controls. When rationing and consumer price control restrictions were lifted after the war, the ice cream manufacturers found themselves the only ones that had to pay the export realisation price for butterfat while other food manufacturers paid the ordinary (effectively subsidised) wholesale price.

McNivens ice cream cone and wafer advertisement, 1946.
- The Frostee Digest, NZICA archives.

1953 - Ice cream manufacturers were furious at the ongoing impasse with the government over regulatory control of town milk pricing - this meant that ice cream companies were charged 8d more per pound of butterfat than cheese or butter producers.

The Minister replied that while ice cream is a food stuff, it cannot be regarded as basic or essential, therefore did not qualify for the 'subsidy' - although biscuits, confectionary and pastry goods all apparently did. This debate raged on for another decade, and it was 1987 before the industry was no longer required to pay export realisation prices for butterfat.

1953 - There are reports in the press that Cheltenham Co-Op Dairy Company of Fielding is planning to purchase an ice cream operation - the first time a manufacturing dairy co-operative had ventured into the ice cream business. The move (which does not appear to have come to anything) created great concern amongst established ice cream producers because of the dairy industry's inherent advantages of raw material cost, supply and scale, and its tax-free status.

Legend: Hokey Pokey

Who invented Hokey Pokey ice cream? There are several stories, and a lot of speculation. One story says that Hokey Pokey was first sold as a commercial ice cream flavour by the Meadow Gold Ice Cream Company of Papatoetoe in the 1940s. Except that we don't believe the company existed until the mid-'50s! Another says that Tip Top Ice Cream Co. (Auckland) was the first to make it, around the same time, although again, the story is not well documented, and anyway, sugar rationing raises serious doubts that a product like this could have been launched during the war years. A third story has Peter Pan Ice Cream in Waipukurau making the first Hokey Pokey ice cream in the mid '50s. However by far the strongest claim for "invention" of the flavour is made by ice cream industry legend, Brian Simon. In a 2010 interview with Radio NZ, he recalls making the first Hokey Pokey ice cream at Dunedin's Newjoy Ice Cream Co. in 1953, using broken Crunchie Bar pieces from the Cadbury Fry Hudson factory just down the street (Brian at 00:15:45): This version also reinforces the historical claim that Dunedin is the "home" of Hokey Pokey. Since 1868, Dunedin had been home to the very successful Hudson & Co. biscuit and confectionery company. As early as 1892 a Christchurch confectioner, Edward Hill, was making a confectionery product called Hokey Pokey, as advertised in the South Canterbury Times and Timaru Herald, sold “one penny a lump”. Hill had spent eight years working on the steam pans at Hudsons in Dunedin before leaving to set up his own business, so it's possible that he learned how to make Hokey Pokey, or something like it, at Hudsons. However, a New Zealand patent lodged in 1896 is the earliest definitive proof that we have of the name 'hokey pokey' being used in this country for the confectionery product that we also know as honeycomb toffee or cinder toffee. On 14 March 1896 a handwritten application for the patent of a recipe, the invention for a confection to be known as Hokey Pokey, was lodged by William Hatton, a manufacturing confectioner from Caversham, Dunedin, at the New Zealand Patent Office. He submitted his application under the Patents, Designs, and Trademarks Act 1889, along with a detailed recipe for producing “Hokey Pokey” from a mixture of sugar, glucose, water, and baking soda. Whether Hudson & Co. already had Hokey Pokey in its product range, or whether at some point it acquired Hatton's business, or his skills, or just his recipe, we're not sure. By 1930, Hudson became Cadbury Fry Hudson, and by 1953 the company was making Crunchie Bars in Dunedin, and that was when Newjoy started to put broken pieces of Hokey Pokey into ice cream. Read more about Brian Simon and Newjoy ice cream ... Read more about the Hokey Pokey legend at longwhitekid ... Whoever invented it started a love affair that is just as strong 70 years later.

Hokey Pokey - crunchy, gooey honey-comb toffee pieces in vanilla ice cream, a taste experience all of its own. Brian Simon William Hatton's 1896 patent application for Hokey Pokey. Where else in the world would they give an ice cream flavour its own postage stamp?

"Take-home" vs. "Bulk"

1954 - During this year ice cream production reached 4 million gallons, or 15.36 pints per head of population, a 10% increase on the previous year. 2.36 million gallons (58%) was sold as "bulk" ice cream, ie., in large containers for scooping.

Bulk ice cream was filled into 1 gallon or 2 1/2 gallon cylindrical cans, or larger, for distribution to dairies and milk bars, either scooped into cones (a pint produced seven to eight four-penny ice cream cones), or served in cups or on dishes.

BIGROLL ice cream scoop advertisement, 1953.
- Frostee Digest.



NZICMA bulk (scoop) ice cream poster and guide to usage, early 1950s.
- Owen Norton collection.

However there was now one domestic refrigerator in every two homes in New Zealandand the spread of refrigerators brought about a big change in the proportion of ice cream sold as traditional "bulk" ice cream, to more and more "take-home" ice cream.

Take-home ice cream was packaged at the factory, most commonly in waxed cardboard pint and quart packs, but also in half-pints, and "sixpenny bricks", for home consumption.

NZICMA take home ice cream stand-up display card, early 1950s.
- Owen Norton collection.


Wholesale and retail pricing for bulk, take-home and novelties, by region, 1954.
- The Frostee Digest, NZICA archives.

Snowdrop Ice Cream Co., Ashburton, 1955, with proprietor Mr Ian Paterson. Note NZICMA take-home display card in window.
- The Frostee Digest, NZICA archives.

The National Film Unit made a short feature film on ice cream manufacture following an industry radio campaign based on the theme 'Take Home Ice Cream - Take Home Health.'

Another successful radio advertising campaign which ran from 1957 to 1960 was based on the slogan "Meal Time is Ice Cream Time".

Leaflets were distributed widely to back up the radio adverts, which were fronted by Aunt Daisy (above). The campaign promoted ice cream at breakfast, lunch and dinner time.

May 1954 - the NZ Ice Cream Manufacturers' Assn (NZICMA) ran their first Ice Cream Week, a four-day training course for the ice cream industry run by the Assn's Technical Adviser Mr Frank Morgan, registration fee £1.

1954 - The Food Hygiene Regulations were amended to allow 'composite shops', ie., those selling vegetables and other un-packaged foods, to also sell bulk ice cream, scooped on the premises.

Snowflake Uranium Ice Cream advertisement,
Grey River Argus, 23 November 1955
- Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

1955 - another, potentially not-so-healthy ice cream marketing exercise was run by Westland Snowflake Ice Cream Ltd, when it advertised Uranium Ice Cream.

Listen to Owen Norton, former owner and Director of Westland Snowflake, explain the background, talking to Bryan Crump on Radio NZ National programme - Kete West Coast.

Burrell's Ice Cream advertised on Frost Bros.dairy and grocery, on the corner of Rangitikei and Featherston Streets., Palmerston North, 1955 (detail). Photo by Bruce Watt.
- Manawatu Heritage.

Supreme Ice Cream advertisement, 1950s, from a recipe book
published by the Wakari Branch of the Dunedin Free Kindergarten.
- Babette Kreyenhop.

In an unusual display of commercial openness, the Peerless Ice Cream company of Wanganui included a copy of a typical commercial ice cream recipe from the 1950's in one of their advertisements:

Peerless Ice Cream advertisement, 1950s.
Wanganui Free Kindergarten Assn. Recipe Book, via Massey family.

Gelatine (made from beef skin) was one of the most common commercial stabilisers used, with benefits of slowing ice crystal growth during storage, and giving the ice cream a very smooth texture, and clean flavour release.

Glycerol Monostearate (GMS), a derivative of tallow, was the typical commercial emulsifier used, helping the integration of milkfat and protein during processing, and also contributing to a smoother, better-keeping product.

Ice cream packaging, late 1950s, Sparrow Industrial Pictures Ltd.
Bulk can (scooping pack), top left.
Brands (clockwise from top): Rob Roy, Clarke's, Hostess, Bar-Lo-Bar (Barlows?),
New American, Aurora, Tui, Super Cold, Havmor, Tip Top.
- Auckland Museum.

From an advertisement for "The new Lily Ice Cream Tub", 1958. Manufactured in N.Z. by
Carton Specialties, distributed by Frank M. Winstone Ltd. Branded tubs include Alpine,
Byers, Dennes', McDonald's, CreamCraft, Super Cold, Wise's, Burrells, Peter Pan,
Eldora, Frosty Jack, Meadow Gold and Tip Top.
- Frostee Digest.

1954 - Coker & Mills Ice Cream was established in a factory that was originally a malthouse for a brewery, in Dodson St, Blenheim.

By 1955, the ice cream unit used for the NZ consumers price index (CPI) basket of goods and services was changed to a pint block (568mls), which was valued at 20 pence ($3.65 in today's terms).

The Blue Moon Dairy and ice cream garden, Hastings, late 1950s.
- Chris Beall - Hawke's Bay Today.

Crystal Ice Cream (Dunedin) sign.
- dt.

Peter Pan ice cream delivery, Morere Hot Springs Tearooms, around 1960.
- transpress nz.

New Food Regulations

1959 - Regulations were introduced for the Control of Over-Run in Ice Cream, over-run (increase in volume due to the addition of air during the whipping process) to not exceed 100%, measured by weight of solids per gallon.

August 1961 - A new ice cream standard was set - a return to a minimum butterfat content of 10%, and the use of any fat other than milk fat was prohibited.

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