Tip Top (ice cream) facts for kids
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Frozen confectionery manufacturing |
| Founded | 1936 |
| Headquarters | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Products | Ice cream, ice blocks |
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Number of employees
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380 |
| Parent | Froneri |
Tip Top is a famous ice cream brand from New Zealand. It started in 1936 in Wellington. Today, it is owned by Froneri, which is a company created by PAI Partners and Nestlé working together. Before this, Tip Top was part of a big New Zealand dairy company called Fonterra.
Contents
The Story of Tip Top Ice Cream
How it All Began
In 1936, two friends, Albert Hayman and Len Malaghan, opened their first ice cream shop. It was on Manners Street in Wellington. That same year, they opened two more shops, one in Wellington and one in Dunedin. The Tip Top Ice Cream Company officially started as a business in 1936.
There are two stories about how the name "Tip Top" came to be. One story says a Māori boy on a train tried their ice cream. When asked what he thought, he said, "Oh, it's tip top!" Another story says Hayman and Malaghan heard someone on a train say their meal was "tip top."
By 1938, Tip Top was making its own ice cream. Their shops were doing well in the lower North Island, and also in Nelson and Blenheim.
Growing Bigger
In May 1938, a new company, Tip Top Ice Cream Company Auckland Limited, was added. Because it was hard to deliver ice cream and because of World War II, this Auckland company worked separately from the Wellington one. By 1960, the company had grown so much that a main company was formed, called General Foods Corporation (NZ) Limited.
In November 1962, Hayman and Malaghan opened a huge new ice cream factory. It was in Mount Wellington, Auckland. This factory was the biggest and most advanced in the Southern Hemisphere (the part of the world south of the equator). It cost NZ$700,000. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Keith Holyoake, even came to the opening!
The Auckland factory first made ice cream only for the summer. They sold ice creams for a shilling. Soon, they created popular treats like Topsy, Jelly Tip, FruJu, and Ice Cream Sundaes. These products were so successful that the Mt Wellington factory started working 24 hours a day, all year round.
New Owners and Changes
As more people wanted Tip Top ice cream, new factories opened. One was in Christchurch and another in Perth, Australia. In 1991, the Christchurch factory was updated to meet strict rules for selling ice cream to Japan.
In April 1997, a company called Heinz Watties sold Tip Top to Peters & Browne's Foods. This company was from Western Australia. When Peters & Browne's and Tip Top joined, they became the biggest independent ice cream business in the Southern Hemisphere.
Four years later, in June 2001, Fonterra, a big New Zealand dairy company, bought Tip Top. In 2007, the Christchurch factory closed. All ice cream making moved to the Auckland factory.
In 2019, Fonterra sold Tip Top for $380 million to a company called Froneri. Froneri is a joint venture between Nestlé and PAI Partners. Fonterra said it was better to sell Tip Top because Fonterra focuses on dairy nutrition, and Tip Top makes sweet treats.
In October 2022, Tip Top stopped making two ice cream flavors. One of them, Cookies & Cream, had just won a national award. Many people in New Zealand were upset about this!
How Tip Top Works Today
When Tip Top was sold to Froneri in 2019, it was making about 41 million liters of ice cream each year. Tip Top ice cream is sent to many countries. These include Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands.
Popular Tip Top Treats
Here are some of the popular ice cream treats Tip Top has made over the years:
Before the 1950s
- Tip Top Ice cream (in big containers)
- Eskimo Pie (now called Polar Pie)
- Topsy (the first ice cream on a stick, named after a cow!)
1950s
- Jelly Tip
- Rocky Road
- Toppa
- TT2's
- Joy Bar
1960s
- Trumpet
- Fruju
- Moggy man
- Tip Top Ice cream (in new 2-liter plastic containers)
1970s
- Popsicle
- R2D2 Space Ice
- Choc Bar
1980s
- Crofters Cheesecakes
- Goody Goody Gum Drops
- Batman
- Hokey Bar (with a "heart of gold")
1990s
- Memphis Meltdown
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (in a 2-liter bowl shaped like a turtle)
- Moritz
- Cadbury Ice Cream range (in bowls and cones)
- Sonic the Hedgehog Milk Ice
- Paradiso
2000s
- Popsicle Creamy (used to be called Chill)
- Screwball
- Soft Serve
- Ronald McDonald ice cream
- Cone Ball
- Choc bar
