More ice-cream being eaten — manufacturer

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 23

More ice-cream being eaten — manufacturer

A resurgence had occurred in ice-cream consumption during the last few months, partly because of the warm weather and also because of Tip Top’s promotional success at the recent World Expo in Brisbane. Thousands of people queued at the New Zealand display to get a taste of the uniquely New Zealand hokey pokey icecream

According to the plant manager of Tip Top Christchurch, Mr Jeffrey Mugford, hokey pokey still accounted for about 30 per cent of Tip Top’s ice-cream market, vanilla the other 30 per cent, and the remaining 40 per cent shared between other flavours. Boysenberry was another big seller. Expo had helped make New Zealanders more aware of just how good their ice-cream was compared with other parts of the world that used cornflour to extend their icecream, said Mr Mugford. Easy access to all the main dairy ingredients had made all New Zealand brands of ice-cream amongst the best in the world, he said. Asked whether New Zealand consumers were fussy, Mr Mugford said, “They certainly know if they don’t like something and they’ll tell us, but

they’re so used to the best quality ice-cream that they demand it of right in most cases.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, if you’ve got the resources, you should make the most of them.” "Starchip” and “Hokinana” are two new novelty ice-cream being introduced specially for Christmas.

"Starchip” is an orangeflavoured chocolate chip ice-cream with another coloured ice-cream in the shape of a star in the middle. “Hokinana” is a heart-shaped banana icecream with hokey pokey in it.

Both will be available during Christmas week, according to Mr Mugford.

He said he had seen a lot of new trends in his 20 years in the ice-cream industry, with the latest being a move toward more natural products. With this in mind, Tip Top had introduced natural-flavoured 2 litre plastic container icecream about 12 months ago. The company had since dropped slower selling flavours in this line such as raspberry, passionfruit and pineapple.

New additions to the Natural line are carob and honey, cinnamon and muesli, double blueberry, vanilla, and apricot and peach.