Jelly good Jelly Tip turns 50

By KATHERINE HOBY

Every New Zealander has a Jelly Tip story.

For some it is the enduring memory of being treated to one when returning from a weekend trip to the beach - sand between toes, towels around neck, sunburned legs.

For others it was all about the precise process of eating one - how to stop it from melting too fast, how to nibble the chocolate off without the whole thing crumbling. And the eternal question: how to stop the crowning glory - the jelly - dropping off altogether?

And now this little piece of Kiwiana is celebrating its 50th birthday.

"Every Kiwi has contributed to JT's success, and we wanted to celebrate," says Tip-Top marketing manager Gabrielle Alder. So they should, because New Zealanders have munched their way through about 150 million Jelly Tips.

George Hayman, now 97, was one of Tip-Top's directors from 1945 until 1965.

He says management was constantly looking for new products, and concepts.

"You've got to be on the search for new ideas all the time.

"We had these sampling sessions for new products at least once a week. Well, when we tried this one, people were silent for a while ... It was a winner for sure."

Mr Hayman says refrigeration is the key to a good Jelly Tip. And he takes his ice cream eating seriously.

"It's the worst thing in the world when it gets sloppy and slides off."

He used to live across the road from the old Tip-Top factory, and would serve ice cream fresh from the factory's giant churns to his dinner guests.

Even today he walks to the dairy to fetch a Jelly Tip, or other ice cream, about every second day.

"Maybe it's the walk, but I like to think it's the ice cream. That first taste is ... mmm ... heaven."

The Jelly Tip was dreamed up by a team of creative-minded chemists who had been given the brief to develop an ice cream children could eat when out and about.

The Eskimo Pie had been a great seller for Tip-Top at the time.

"They decided to go back to the good old jelly and ice cream concept parents had been feeding their kids for dessert for ages," Ms Alder says.

"Put it on a stick, and, hey presto - instant hit."

The creative team did look overseas to see what was happening there, but wanted a New Zealand creation.

"It was truly a Kiwi-born number," she says.

First came the humble Topsy, a chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream creation, complete with a revolutionary idea for the time - a stick.

The Jelly Tip followed soon after at sixpence (5c).

The price remained fairly steady until the early 1970s, when the Jelly Tip rose to 10c. By the end of the decade it cost 30c.

It became a Giant Jelly Tip in the early 1990s, when the amount of jelly was doubled, and now costs $1.40.

Ms Alder says today's moulding process for Tip-Top's "ice cream dream creation" is a high-tech marvel.

Hundreds of moulds are run through a bath of very cold water. A machine squirts jelly into individual moulds, and it quickly freezes in the low temperature.

The ice cream is then poured on top of the now-solid jelly.

A stick is placed in each ice cream by a giant robotic arm, which then picks up each group of moulds. A shot of hot water is applied to the outside, and the ice cream is released from the mould.

It is dipped into a rather Willy Wonka-ish sounding giant bath of liquid chocolate, dried off, then sealed into a wrapper by a giant cutting and wrapping machine.

One tray has 1000 moulds. The giant machinery can dip and pour six ice creams at a time, and produces 250 a minute.

Ms Alder says the reason the jelly has more sticking power than in decades past is that the freezing technology has improved.

Consistent demand for the Jelly Tip over the past 50 years has meant vast numbers have been produced, and consumed.

Tip-Top sold just under two million last year. Jelly Tip brings about $2.5 million to the Tip-Top coffers every year.

It has remained in the top 10 novelty ice creams for the company since the statistics started being compiled. Jelly Tip now sits at number nine, amid stiff competition from newcomers such as Memphis Meltdown.

Ms Alder says it is a marketer's dream.

"Everyone knows about it, so it sells itself.

"It's the star of the Tip-Top family."