Ask Sue-belinda

I MAY have to stop putting in my last paragraph that sentence in which I invite your questions “about anything really”.

In the past week I’ve received a question about Brockhoff biscuits (Sally), loads of questions about Tim Tam bickies (Jon, Taylor, Clare, Robbo, Kev, Jayne and Arthur), a question about Cottee’s Lime Coola soft drink (Terry) and another about Cottee’s Passiona (Fran), Bob wanted to know about Victa and finally Zac wished to know if Milo was Australian.

Then one morning not long after 3.00am, it suddenly occurred to me what the common thread was. Australia Post has launched the A-Z of Australian icons in the form of 26 $1 coins each featuring an ‘Aussie Icon’ and made by the Royal Australian Mint.

Having now established what it was that linked this group of disparate and somewhat nostalgic questions, I headed over to the Australia Post website to see these coins.

So, what’s an icon? An icon is something that is representative, or worthy of being representative of a people. So an Australian icon would be something that is representative of us and our culture. So for Sydney-siders, the Harbour Bridge or the Opera House might be iconic.

Returning to the Australia Post website, I reviewed the coins.

They kick off with an Akubra, a quintessentially Australian icon if ever I saw one. This company was founded in 1897 by Benjamin Dunkerley and is owned today by the Keir Family who headquarter their company in Kempsey, New South Wales.

‘B’ for barbecue is another suitable Australian icon, though sadly it would seem that only two companies actually manufacture their barbecues here.

‘C’ is for Cherry Ripe and I’ll confess, I am the owner of a body partially made up of Cherry Ripe. Cherry Ripe bars were conceived and made by the Australian Macrobertson’s Chocolate Company, owned and established by Macpherson Robertson. They were introduced to Australia in 1924 and as such are the oldest continuously manufactured chocolate bar in the country. Macrobertson’s was taken over by Cadbury in 1967, which merged with Schweppes in 1969, but it continued to make them under the Macrobertson name until 2002. Cadbury was bought by the American giant Kraft Foods in February 2010 and renamed Mondelez Australia in 2013.

All’s good as we slide into ‘M’ for Milo. Well you’ve got to love an Aussie Milo haven’t you? I’m sure Thomas Mayne, an Australian food scientist thought so when he conceived this rich chocolate and malty drink in 1934.

He named his drink in honour of the famous wrestler of ancient times, Milo of Croton who lived in 6th century Greece and was famed for his legendary strength. He previewed it at the Royal Easter Show in 1934 and the production plant at Smithton just near Kempsey NSW was busy from the start.

Nobby’s Nuts was made famous in an ad featuring John Doyle (better known as ‘Rampaging Roy Slavin, one half of Roy and HG). Nobby’s are Australia’s largest nuts brand and market with the double entendre pitch line of ‘nibble Nobby’s nuts’. Nobby’s are manufactured by Smith’s Snackfood Company, which was a chip company founded in the UK in 1920 and was sold to Pepsico in August of 1998.

On to Tim Tam. The Arnott’s Sydney and Adelaide bakeries manufacture these at the rate of 3000 bickies per minute or 60 bickies a second. Campbell’s Soup Company had been part of an alliance with Arnott’s in 1970 with the plan of taking on American giants like Nabisco, but Campbells bought Arnott’s outright in 1997 and sold it in 2019 to the US private equity firm Kohlbery Kravis Roberts.

We’re up to ‘V’ for Victa. These lawnmowers became a feature of every Australian shed, and burst on to the Australian market in

1952 after Mervyn Vincent Richardson made a prototype in his shed from scrap metal and a peach tin. In 1970 Victa was acquired by the Sunbeam

Corporation Ltd. It was on sold to GUD Holdings Ltd in 1996 (which was still Australian owned), but then it sold the Victa Lawn Care business to the US company Briggs and Stratton in 2008.

We glide past the witchetty grub, xanthorrhoea (grass tree) and yabby to Zinc Sunscreen. Zinc, or more correctly zinc oxide was discovered by Andreas Margraff in 1746. The thing about zinc oxide is that it protects the skin without being absorbed into the skin. Generations of Australians went to the beach slathered in white cream on noses, lips, shoulders, ears.

There are some fabulous Australian companies buying back ‘our’ brands – Bega bought back Vegemite – I’d have been tempted to put in Vegemite for ‘V’ or Violet Crumble bought back from Nestle by Robert Menz and his confectionary company in South Australia on January 11, 2018.

As for Brockhoff Biscuits Sally, it was founded by Adolph Brockhoff in 1860 and purchased by Arnott’s in a 1963 merger that saw its name vanish in the late 1970s. As for Cottee’s, they were founded by Spencer Milton Cottee in the early 1900s and began production of Passiona around 1925-27 in its Lismore factory.

In 1965 Cottee’s was acquired by American General Foods and in 1984 by Cadbury Schweppes. Schweppes was separated out and sold to Japan’s Asahi Breweries in 2009.