By Pam Kiriakidis
Creating the longest Minties wrapper is how Broadford’s Nestle Factory is honouring the 100 years of Australia’s most famous lolly.
While the Broadford factory, home to Allen’s Lollies, has only been making Minties for about a year, it has played a critical role in the life of the lolly.
Through the years, Minties have reflected the humour of the time, commissioning cartoonists to express their slogan of ‘Moments Like These You Need Minties’ since 1926.
Over the decades, the nostalgic lolly has been passed on through generations, creating small moments between family and friends with memorable catchphrases and cartoons depicting occasions of humour, disaster, and frustration.
The Minties wrapper challenge, ripping the wrapper to create the longest continious piece of paper, has long been an Australian favourite challenge – enjoyed during road trips or as a nostalgic party game.
Broadford’s production manager Steven Brown said the brand was unique to the Australian culture, providing memories for all since 1922.
“Everyone’s got a story of a minty,” Mr Brown said.
“My earliest memory is visiting our gran with family at Easter time … and she always had a jar of minties after dinner, like that was a thing … and she’d be smiling.”
Mr Brown said the treat was recently added to the production list at Broadford, making almost one million Minties per day, along with other famous lollies the factory specialised in.
“We’ve been producing them at Broadford for a short part of [100 years], just over a year. They’ve been produced over the last century at several factories,” he said.
“[Broadford is] the home of the jelly lollies, so Snakes Alive, Party Mix and Strawberries and Cream, Jellybean, all those jelly-based lollies. It’s probably a good thing to have the lolly experts work on the iconic product.”
While celebrating the 100 years of the much-loved treat, Broadford is also recognising 40 years of producing Allen’s Lollies.
Mr Brown said Broadford had been fortunate over the past 40 years, increasing the factory’s production with workers, some of whom were third generation of families who have worked at the factory.
“We’d be close to double the capacity [in output] that we were in the original days so that’s been really successful,” he said.
“It’s a huge amount of time, we have our third generation of people working here now.”
Mr Brown said the team at Broadford planned to celebrate the 40 years with a pizza day to honour the hard work.
“We make lollies, like that’s what we do. To make lollies that takes all sorts of people, we have engineering and quality and safety or logistics, a lot of things go into a normal day,” he said.
“We need to train our teams, make sure where we’re testing and making the standard that the customer wants.
“At the end of the day, we’re trying to make smiles.”
Nestlé Oceania head of marketing confectionery Joyce Tan said the 100th birthday of Minties was a major milestone.
“The all-time classic lolly has left Aussies having ‘Moments Like These’ for years! The adverts have resonated with Australian culture, capturing the hearts and smiles of many through the decades,” she said.
