Did you know that the Topsy -  first stick ice cream produced by Tip Top - was named after a cow!? Other iconic favourites include Jelly tip, TT2's, FruJu, Popsicle, Trumpet, Choc Bar and Eskimo Pie. Tip Top ice cream has been made in NZ since 1938. Nowadays over 40 million litres is produced annually for the NZ and overseas market. Fonterra, which acquired the company in 2001, announced on 13 May 2019 it has sold the Tip Top ice cream brand to European company Froneri as part of an asset portfolio review. The Tip Top name was retained and the factory continues to operate at Mount Wellington, Auckland.

Tip Top's beginnings in Wellington

In October 1935 Albert Hayman and Leonard Malaghan formed Health Foods New Zealand and opened their first ice cream parlour on Manners Street in Wellington. At age twenty, Malaghan had joined the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture in 1925, where he received training in ice-cream manufacture from visiting American experts. In 1931, after developing a new formula for ice cream, Malaghan became manager of the Dunedin Ice Cream Manufacturing Company which produced the Royal Ice Cream brand. Bert Hayman was one of Malaghan's customers and had experience in selling ice cream in his Dunedin shop.  (See Te Ara.)     

Milk bar parlour opens:

 In 1935, both Hayman and Malaghan agreed to go into business together and open a  shop in Wellington selling only ice creams and milk shakes. Instead of taking payment for the ice-cream formula, Malghan negotiated instead a supply of ice cream for one year at a very low rate from the Dunedin Ice Cream Manufacturing Co.  The ice cream parlour was profitable and in March 1936 a second shop was opened in Lambton Quay.  In May, Health Foods New Zealand was registered with a capital of £15,000. It acquired the two Wellington shops and Hayman's shop in Dunedin.    (See Te Ara.)    

Tip Top Ice Cream Company:

Later in July 1936, Hayman and Malaghan registered the Tip Top Ice Cream Company as a manufacturing firm and two years later they began making their own ice cream at Waterloo Quay.  The name "Tip Top" was said to have come from them overhearing diners describing their Wellington restaurant meal as "tip top" (see NZHerald).  By the end of 1937 there were six Health Foods (NZ)-operated Tip Top Milk Bars in central Wellington, two of them in Cuba St.  Further parlours for selling ice cream were opened in the lower North Island and South Island.  (See Te Ara and NZICMA)   

Ice cream treats over the years

For a listing of brand names over the decades since 1930s and current range, see Wikipedia article, NZICMA  and Tip Top website. Tip Top's most popular flavour in 2 litres and scoop ice cream is creamy vanilla.  Tip Top Boysenberry Ripple ice cream won the overall Supreme Award at the New Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers' Awards in 2018, the fourth time that flavour has won the award (see NZICMA).

Auckland's Great South Road Factory: 1938

In May 1938, Tip Top set up a separate ice cream company in Auckland - Tip Top Ice Cream Company Auckland Limited - which operated independently from its Wellington company and was managed by Hayman.  

During World War II 

During the Second World War, the Tip Top Ice Cream Company advertised for staff to replace those serving in the armed services. In November 1944, Tip Top ice cream mix was supplied to an ice cream plant installed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands for RNZAF servicemen on leave from fighting at Camp Tui,  (see NZICMA).

POST-WORLD WAR II REORGANISATION  

Post-war, the Tip Top Ice Cream Company was reorganised, with Hayman taking over the Auckland company and Malaghan becoming the sole share-holder of the Wellington company. In 1953, Tip Top moved its Wellington operations to a modern factory in Johnsonville.  Both factories sold ice cream to retail outlets. With home freezers becoming more common in the 1940s onwards, ice-cream production (and consumption!) increased rapidly.  (See Te Ara.)    

TIP TOP CORNER ON SOUTHERN MOTORWAY: 1962

Later in October 1962, Tip Top opened a larger ice cream factory on 20 acres in Mount Wellington, which cost $700,000. Overlooking the Southern Motorway, the factory has become an Auckland landmark. It was originally a seasonal factory, which produced ice cream for the summer months; then became a year-round operation. See exterior photo in NZ Herald.

Merger of operations: 1960 -

In 1960, the Auckland and Wellington companies merged as General Foods Corporation (New Zealand), with Malaghan as managing director.  Six years later, in a mutual exchange of directors, Malaghan joined the board of J. Wattie Canneries, with which General Foods completed a merger in 1969. Two further plants were opened in Christchurch and Perth, with Christchurch specially designed to meet the export requirements of the Japanese market. 

The company went to Goodman Fielder in 1987, Heinz Watties in 1992, West Australia's Peters and Browne's Foods in April 1997, Kiwi Dairy Co in 2000, and to Fonterra in 2001.  When  the Christchurch Factory was closed in 2007, all production moved to Auckland. Tip Top ice cream is sold in NZ and exported  to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. See Tip Top website.

Manufacturing

The key stages for making the ice cream are summarised in a diagram on Tip Top's website. Ingredients include NZ milk and cream and locally grown fruit from places like Nelson, Auckland, Hawke's Bay and Central Otago.  Did you know that "Purple carrots help make the jelly in our Jelly Tip jelly so red.  And turmeric and spirulina make the greeny colour of our Goody-Goody Gumdrops ice cream."  

MARKETING 

Tip Top ice cream is sold in NZ and exported  to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. According to Wikipedia, Tip Top produces around 41 million litres of ice cream a year, and Fonterra Brands (Tip Top) Ltd has around 400 employees. Kiwis consume about 1.9 million litres of milk in their Tip Top ice cream and about two million Jelly Tips every year. Top favourites from cartoned ice cream are:  Vanilla, Hokey Pokey and Jelly Tip.  See Tip Top Ice cream Facebook page for marketing news.  

In 1964, the first Tip Top Trumpet was launched - vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone, coated with chocolate and nuts. See background information on the New Zealand Ice cream Manufacturers Assoc (Inc) website: "It's got nuts It's got chocolate Smooth vanilla ice cream And a brand new waffle cone Four-in-One, ice cream fun Tip-Top Trumpet." Price 1 shilling (10 cents). The 1985 advert for Tip Top Trumpet features Rachel Hunter in her first modelling job aged 15 years, which was followed in 1991 with this TV advert  with the catchphrase:  'You can't beat a trumpet".

SPOT the TIp TOP sign around the country

Tip Top sold to Froneri: May 2019

Fonterra, which acquired the company in 2001, announced in Dec 2018 that it planned to sell the Tip Top ice cream brand as part of an asset portfolio review (see NZ Herald). Tip Top was sold to European ice cream manufacturer Froneri in May 2019 for $380 million. Froneri, which was formed as a joint venture between PAI Partners and Nestlé in 2016, produces Cadbury, Oreo, KitKat, Movenpick, Toblerone, Smarties, Magnum and Milo ice creams. Froneri's CEO Ibrahim Najafi commented the Tip Top name and its management operations, including the factory site at Mount Wellington, would be maintained. (See NZ Herald, 13 May 2019).

Renaming the Eskimo Pie: 2020

Vanilla flavoured, chocolate-coated Eskimo pies have been popular ice-creams in New Zealand since 1940s. The ice cream is to be rebranded as the name Eskimo is seen as derogatory towards Inuit or Native Alaskan people.  See NZ Herald article (24 June 2020): "Tip Top to rename controversial Eskimo Pie ice creams".

TIp Top, 2020s - 

Find out more:

Tip Top, URL: https://www.tiptop.co.nz/

Wikipedia; Tip Top (ice cream), URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_Top_(ice_cream)

(This DigitalNZ Story was updated in April 2023)