New Zealand ice cream history in the making

The culture of invention that created Jelly Tip fifty-seven years ago has turned Goody Goody Gum Drops into another world-beating ice cream on a stick.

Jelly Tip was an ice cream ground-breaker in the 50s, when Tip Top took ice-cream-and-jelly, mixed it with Kiwi ingenuity, a little bit of mystery and some technical know-how, and created an ice cream on a stick that inspired food scientists, broke records and defied time.

Since then, New Zealand has made an art-form of immortalising popular sweets, drinks and desserts on a stick and turning them into timeless classics. After Jelly Tip, popular fizzy drink lemonade was reinvented on a stick first as TT2 and later as Popsicle. Next Fru Ju made pineapple sexy, and Rocky Road and Choc Bar made confectionery cool.

Tip Top's new Goody Goody Gum Drops on a stick combines the familiar ice cream New Zealanders have enjoyed for 25 years with mini gum drops and an outer chocolate shell.

The technical team at Tip Top fine-tuned the production process so that over 10,000 Goody Goody Gum Drops ice creams on sticks would come off the new machine every hour.

Says Murray Taylor, Tip Top's General Manager Technical: "Very few ice cream makers in the world would have attempted it. We are delighted to have pushed the technical boundaries."

Murray Taylor was also the inventor of the original Goody Goody Gum Drops ice cream flavour almost 25 years ago. For 35 years he has been turning New Zealand's fresh cream into original and delicious ice cream in tubs and on sticks, admired and copied around the world.

This year Kiwis have licked through 3 million full-size Jelly Tips, 1.9 million mini Jelly Tips, and 50 million gum drops in Tip Top's Goody Goody Gum Drops bubble-gum flavoured ice cream.

It was love-at-first-sight for ‘Goody’ and ‘Stick’ whose TV debut is the product of a romance made in ice cream heaven

Goody Goody Gum Drops ice cream on a stick comes with its own love story, set to air on TV from Sunday 16th November. The story sees ‘Goody’ and ‘Stick’ fall in love at the checkout of their local supermarket. Their romance unfolds with a funny and fateful candle-lit dinner, melting moments for Goody at the place all good ice creams go (the beach), and a love-struck encounter for Stick with a low-hanging branch on a bike ride through the countryside.

The animated television commercial has been created and made by a young team at Underpants TV for Tip Top’s ad agency Colenso BBDO. It’s a contemporary take on a silent movie. There is no script. The only voices heard behind the images are those of a choir, and the background music is wistful and romantic.

With a record-breaking summer behind them and good summer weather predicted ahead, New Zealand’s timeless ice creams, and the new kid on the block, are set to get tongues wagging.

ENDS