Grab your tissues and a piping hot mug of Gregg’s Red Ribbon Roast, it’s the end of an era for some heroes of the Kiwi kitchen.
It was the smell that hit you first. The singed, acrid smell of roasted coffee beans would waft over North Dunedin on a cold, grey winter afternoon, permeating from the Gregg’s coffee factory somewhere on Forth Street. Whether you were studying at Central Library at the University of Otago or walking north up Great King Street towards the botanical gardens, you always knew when Gregg’s was roasting coffee beans. Some days, depending on how fierce the southerly wind blew, it felt like the smell drifted into your nostrils and burrowed in there forever, a pungent scarfie perfume that was more burned toast than Red Ribbon Roast.
Gregg’s instant coffee has been scooped out of big tins in office staffrooms and poured into cups at the local church hall for generations, but soon it will cease to exist.. Last week, Heinz Wattie’s proposed to close the company’s manufacturing facilities in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, as well as the frozen packing at its Hastings factory. Not only will these closures impact 350 jobs, but they will end production of Gregg’s coffee – as well as Wattie’s frozen vegetables, and dips sold under the Mediterranean, Just Hummus and Good Taste Company (La Bonne Cuisine) brands.
The Heinz Wattie’s closures are the latest in a long list of multinationals that have closed their New Zealand operations, and their products will join other dearly departed local foods like Ernest Adams slices, Jaffas, Snifters and Tangy Fruits. No longer will a hearty winter’s night feast of sausages and mash be made healthy with a scoop of Wattie’s chuckwagon corn and peas, or a student stir-fry bulked out by an entire bag of Wattie’s classic mixed veges. And what the heck are we supposed to put on our bumps and bruises, if not a bag of Wattie’s frozen peas?
Sure, there’ll be other (hopefully homegrown) mixed veges for us to buy in the supermarket freezers, but Wattie’s frozen veges have been a versatile staple in New Zealand kitchens since 1947. In the 1960s, a bag of Watties frozen green beans guaranteed both a classy candlelit dinner and a happy spouse (boing!). “Give the professional touch to your meal,” Wattie’s promised. By the 1980s, the company’s latest line of frozen veges was heralded as the saviour of busy wives everywhere, and chucking some frozen sweetcorn into a hearty dinner gave New Zealand women more time to coach kids’ rugby, do some wood carving and then fall asleep.
When Allyson Gofton’s Food in a Minute ads hit our TV screens at 5.59pm each night during the 1990s and 2000s, there was barely a recipe that didn’t feature a bag of Wattie’s frozen vegetables (Wattie’s sponsored the popular advertisements, which were viewed in 750,000 New Zealand homes every single night). By the early 2000s, the power of Wattie’s frozen vegetables had been fully realised, with their baby garden peas so potent that they could actually change lives and influence people.
As Wattie’s frozen veges make their sad march towards the big compost heap in the sky, so too do a variety of beloved homegrown dips. Fancy platter lovers around the nation will soon have a Just Hummus-shaped hole on theirs, and there was nothing more satisfying than plunging a crisp corn chip through every gooey tier of a Villa Mediterranean layered dip. Goodbye, variety of dips. Now, that little corn chip waits.
But as nice as vegetables and dips are, it’s Gregg’s coffee that’s been wafting through Dunedin nostrils and filling New Zealand coffee cups since 1861, and the city won’t smell the same again. Wattie’s Heinz said that if its proposed changes are accepted, the products will be phased out over 12 months, so grab your Arcoroc mug, chuck a bag of Wattie’s frozen peas on your weary heart and let’s pour one out (gravy, obviously) for the end of an era.
