Tip Top is an

ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...

brand founded in 1936 in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

, New Zealand, and now owned by

Froneri Froneri International Limited is a global ice cream manufacturer with its headquarters in Leeming Bar, North Yorkshire, England. It is the largest producer of ice cream in Europe by volume, and the second-largest in the world, after Unilever. ...

(a joint venture between

PAI Partners PAI Partners is a French private equity firm based in Paris. It is one of the oldest firms in the sector, with its origins dating back to Paribas Affaires Industrielles, historically the principal investment arm of Paribas, which started opera ...

and

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

). It was formerly known as Fonterra Brands (Tip Top) Ltd, a subsidiary of the Fonterra Co-operative Group based in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand.

History

In 1936 Albert Hayman and Len Malaghan opened their first ice cream parlour in Manners Street, Wellington, followed in the same year by two more milk bars, one in Wellington and one in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

. The Tip Top Ice Cream Company was registered as a manufacturing company in 1936. The name Tip Top was either chosen after Malaghan gave a Māori boy in a train an ice cream, and after being asked what he thought of it, the boy said "Oh, it's tip top", or that Hayman and Malaghan heard a person on a train say his meal was "tip top". 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 Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

and Blenheim. Tip Top Ice Cream conference in Wellington

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 from the Wellington Tip Top. By 1960 the company had expanded to such an extent that a parent company was formed, General Foods Corporation (NZ) Limited. In November 1962, Hayman and Malaghan opened the biggest and most technically advanced ice cream factory in the Southern Hemisphere, at

Mount Wellington Mount Wellington may refer to: Mountains * Mount Wellington (British Columbia), in Canada * Mount Wellington (New York), in Otsego County, New York, United States * Mount Wellington (Tasmania), in Tasmania, Australia * Mount Wellington (Victoria) ...

, Auckland. The Tip Top factory included staff houses and of farm land overlooking the Southern Motorway and cost NZ$700,000. Prime Minister

Keith Holyoake Sir Keith Jacka Holyoake (11 February 1904 – 8 December 1983) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 26th prime minister of New Zealand, serving for a brief period in 1957 and then from 1960 to 1972, and also as the 13th governor-g ...

attended the opening ceremony. 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. The commercial success of these products transformed the Mt Wellington site into a 24-hour, year-round operation. As demand grew over the years, further plants were opened in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

and

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

. In 1991 the Christchurch factory was upgraded to meet the stringent export requirements of the Japanese market. In April 1997 Heinz Watties sold Tip Top to a

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

n food processor, Peters & Browne's Foods. 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. Four years later in June 2001, New Zealand's national dairy co-operative

Fonterra Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand Multinational corporation, multinational publicly traded dairy cooperative, co-operative owned by New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy ex ...

bought Tip Top Ice Cream after purchasing the Peter and Browne's Foods Business. In 2007 the Christchurch factory was closed, with all production moving to Auckland. In 2019 Fonterra sold Tip Top for $380 million to UK-based company

, a joint venture owned by

and

, citing a conflict of interest between Fonterra being a dairy nutrition company and Tip Top being a confectionery business. In October 2022, Tip Top discontinued two flavours of ice cream including the Cookies & Cream flavour that had just won a national award in the previous month, to considerable public outcry in New Zealand.

Operation

At the time of the 2019 sale to Froneri, Tip Top produced around 41 million litres of ice cream a year. Tip Top Ice Cream is exported to Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands.

List of brands

Pre 1950s

* Tip Top Ice cream available in quarts (1 litre approx) and pints (600ml approx) * Eskimo Pie (now known as Polar Pie) * Topsy (first stick ice cream produced by Tip Top), named after a cow

1950s

* Jelly Tip * Rocky Road * Toppa * TT2's * Joy Bar

1960s

Trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

(first introduced in 1964) * Fruju * Moggy man

1970s

* Popsicle * R2D2 Space Ice * Choc Bar

1980s

* Crofters Cheesecakes *

Goody Goody Gum Drops Goody Goody Gum Drops is a New Zealand flavour of ice cream made by Tip Top (ice cream), Tip Top. It is pastel-green-coloured, bubblegum-flavoured and contains gumdrops. It is considered iconic to New Zealand, and perception of the flavour is p ...

* Batman * Hokey Bar (with heart of gold)

1990s

* Memphis Meltdown * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (in a 2-litre bowl with the ice cream resembling one of the turtles) * Moritz * Cadbury Ice Cream range (in 2 litre bowls and novelty cones) * Sonic the Hedgehog Milk Ice * Paradiso

2000s

* Popsicle Creamy (previously Chill) * Screwball * Soft Serve * Ronald McDonald ice cream * Cone Ball * Choc bar

References

External links

Tip Top official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tip Top (Icecream) Tip Top (ice cream) Dairy products companies of New Zealand Food manufacturers of New Zealand Froneri Ice cream brands New Zealand companies established in 1936 Food brands of New Zealand