The Kiwi brand that’s all Aussie
It has our national bird on the tin, but - unlike the pavlova - Kiwi shoe polish is undisputedly Australian.
Forty years ago, Fergus Ramsay was on holiday in the city of Cuzco, Peru, when he spied a shopkeeper using an Australian shoe polish, Kiwi.
It struck Ramsay just how far the brand - which has a family connection - had come.
In 1906, his grandfather, William Ramsay, started Kiwi in a two-roomed factory in Bouverie Street, Carlton, with business partner Hamilton McKellan.
It sounds like a New Zealand product, but yes, Kiwi actually began in Melbourne. Its name derived from William’s New Zealand-born wife, Annie.
Kiwi tins, with their distinctive name and bird symbol, became staples in homes from Calcutta to Calgary.
A new book about Kiwi, commissioned by Fergus and four other Ramsay grandchildren, tells how by the early 1980s, 250 million tins sold annually, in 183 countries. It had 24 factories around the world.
The book, Kiwi: The Australian Brand That Brought a Shine to the World, is the final work of late journalist Keith Dunstan.
Dunstan wrote that Kiwi was ‘‘probably the most successful manufacturer in Australian corporate history’’ and ‘‘surely the first worldwide Aussie brand’’.
The book is also a migrant success story. William Ramsay, his parents John and Margaret and three siblings, migrated from Scotland in 1878.
They made a fortune in real estate, and in 1888 built the glorious mansion, Clydebank, in Essendon, now part of Ave Maria college. In the early 1900s, William was keen to make his own mark, so set up the Carlton factory, trying to make everything from disinfectants to eczema ointments.
He struck gold with boot polish: Melburnians welcomed a way to re-blacken shoes muddied on the city’s dirt roads.
Dunstan notes that World War I ‘‘was the making of Kiwi’’ - it scored huge Australian and British military contracts, particularly with its dark tan colour. William’s father John headed a formidable sales force in the UK after William died of cancer in 1914.
Kiwi became known for its witty poster ads, now collectors’ items. In 1916, it made an early silent film ad depicting two boys shining a hotel’s guests’ shoes after adult staff enlisted in the war.
Demand for boot polish soared again in World War II, including from US troops. A low point came when Kiwi’s factory in Rouen, France, was bombed and co-opted by the Nazis for their own boots.
After the war, William’s son Tom travelled the world selling Kiwi, opening factories from Singapore to Kenya.
By the 1970s Kiwi had diversified into car polish, toilet cleaner, shampoo and bleach. In 1980, it had 1475 global employees.
In 1982, the company merged with pharmaceutical company Nicholas, then listed on the sharemarket.
Fergus says his father Tom was devastated in 1984 when the company was sold to multinational Consolidated Foods, but market forces were out of his control.
Kiwi’s overseas operations were acquired by Sara Lee - best known for its apple pies - before being sold to its current owner, US company SC Johnson, in 2010. Kiwi is now made overseas.
Tom Ramsay, who died in 1995, was a meticulous record-keeper: his children are seeking a home for his extensive Kiwi and family archive.
Fergus says the book reflects the descendants’ great pride in Kiwi. His brother Dougal Ramsay says the book is ‘‘a bit of a ripping yarn. It tells a very important story, of one of the few Australian companies that became an internationally known product that was sold around the world’’.
- Fairfax Aus