In 1969, the wholesale operations of the Queen Victoria market moved to new premises at Footscray. In part, this was an attempt to distance the criminal activities that had been associated with the fruit and vegetable trade from the general public. A history trail at the Queen Vic market documents some of this dubious history.
By this time, 70% of Victorian metropolitan grocery sales were self-service. Smaller stores formed buying groups to remain competitive. Confectionery and milk, previously available through milk bars and mixed businesses, now began to appear in supermarkets and fresh food became a new focus.
Soft drink company Tarax was one of the first brands to use television, sponsoring a children’s program, Tarax Happy Show, that first went to air in January 1957. At first called The Happy Show after its host, Happy Hammond, it subsequently became The Tarax Happy Show. After Happy Hammond left the show it was renamed The Tarax Show, and was hosted by Geoff Corke (Corky King of the Kids) and later Norman Swain (Uncle Norman) with Panda Lisner (Princess Panda).
Cookery writer Margaret Fulton‘s first cookbook, published by Paul Hamlyn in 1968, sold over a million copies. It was reprinted in 1969 and further editions were published in 1976, 1980, 1991, 1998, 2004 and 2006. The classic 1968 edition was reissued in 2010 revised, updated and with new photography. Margaret Fulton has published many other cookbooks, earning her a place in almost every Australian kitchen.
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet opened in Guildford in Sydney’s western suburbs on 27th April 1968, with a staff of 25. It was opened by a Canadian named Bob Lapointe and started the fast food revolution in Australia. The line at launch was “finger-lickin’ good”.
The first Lebanese restaurant in Sydney was founded by the Mrough brothers in 1967 in Pitt Street, Redfern. Oddly, it was named Wilson’s. Wilson was the first name of one of the brothers, who had been named after US President Woodrow Wilson.
In 1966 the GLAD® brand was born in Australia with the launch of ‘the amazing new plastic GLAD® Wrap, a totally new concept for storing food’. The plastic wrap market in Australia is now valued at $51 million with nine out of ten Australian households purchasing some kind of plastic wrap and the GLAD® brand is a market leader with 53% value share.
By 1966, as overseas companies bought up all the soft drink manufacturers, only one all-Australian company remained as a major marketer of soft drinks: Tarax. The Tarax company was acquired by Cadbury Schweppes in 1972.
On 1 February 1966, Victorian hotel hours were extended to 10pm – the end of six o’clock closing. Judge Archibald McDonald Fraser, who was chairman of the Victorian Licensing Court from 1954 to 1968, recommended the extension of opening hours until 10 o’clock. He had toured Europe and the US to look at licensing laws, and was critical of what he termed “perpendicular drinking” in Australia.
Started by Stephanie Alexander and her Jamaican husband, Monty, mainly as a way to sell products imported from the West Indies, Jamaica House served curries, Jamaican escoveitched fish and a mean pumpkin soup. It became an institution on Lygon Street, Carlton.
In 1966, both Epicurean and Australian Gourmet food magazines were founded. Epicurean was the first Australian magazine devoted entirely to food and wine. It was the official magazine of the Wine and Food Society of Australia and its contributors included Len Evans, Dan Murphy, Mietta O’Donnell, Tony Bilson and Terry Durack. The art direction by Les Mason was dramatic. Australian Gourmet, now Gourmet Traveller, counted Margaret Fulton among its early contributors.
Red Tulip didn’t invent the after-dinner mint. Rowntree’s After Eight Mint Chocolate Thins were launched in England in 1962, but the Aussie chocolatiers at Red Tulip wasted no time in copying the idea. For a couple of decades afterwards, no dinner party was complete without an elegant choc-coated peppermint square, in its individual envelope, to accompany coffee.
Claiming to be the first and most famous of Australia’s “Big Things” (although it was actually pipped by the Big Scotsman in Adelaide) the Big Banana was commissioned by John Landi to attract people to his roadside banana stall at Coffs Harbour, NSW. Over the years, the attraction has had mixed fortunes, but is now the centrepiece of an amusement park.
The American supermarket company purchased three Pratt’s supermarkets in Victoria and launched the Safeway brand. The first was on the site of a successful Pratt’s Supermarket (with rooftop parking) in Frankston, Victoria. In 1985, by which time the chain had grown to 126 supermarkets, Safeway was acquired by Woolworths.
1963 Robert Carrier’s Great Dishes of the World.
Robert Carrier‘s “Great Dishes Of The World” sold over 2 million copies worldwide in 14 languages; and was hailed as one of the great modern cookery classics. The ‘Great Dishes’ included remarkably few from non-European traditions.
Toto’s claims to be the first pizzeria in Australia, and on this basis was inducted into World Pizza Hall of Fame in 2007. However, it’s a false claim. Lucia’s Pizza Bar, in Adelaide’s Central Market, opened four years earlier. Toto’s may well have been the first in Melbourne, opening on 7 July 1961 in Lygon Street, Carlton. Salvatore Della Bruna operated the business in partnership with Franco Fera and, from 1968, with Silvio Tuli and Salvatore Mercogliano. The partners sold the business to Sami Mazloum in 1983.
1961 Mastering the Art of French Cooking first published.
1960 Australian Wine Centre opens in Soho, London.
After World War II, wine exports to Britain resumed. To capture more of the British market the Wine Board opened the Australian Wine Centre in Soho, London, in 1960. Wine was still not one of Australia’s major exports; in 1974-5 when production reached over 36O million litres only 6.5 million litres were exported valued at $5.3 million.
The first Woolworths supermarket was opened at Warrawong in New South Wales in May 1960. It offered a range of variety goods and food, with adjacent parking space. The same year, Woolworths made their first move into liquor, when they purchased a store at Leederville, WA, which had a liquor licence. Further licenses were acquired and consolidated into one trading unit in 1984.
The first Coles supermarket – a freestanding suburban supermarket complete with carpark – opened in the Melbourne suburb of North Balwyn in 1960. By 1973, Coles had supermarkets in every capital city in Australia. Supermarkets, complete with extensive car parks, had begun their unstoppable progress throughout the suburbs.