Bluebird Foods Ltd is a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

division of the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

-based

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

corporation, that manufactures

snack food A snack is a small portion of food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home. Traditionally, snack ...

cereal A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...

s and

muesli bar Muesli ( ) is a cold breakfast dish, the primary ingredient of which is rolled oats, which is set to soak overnight and eaten the next morning. Most often, additional ingredients such as grains, nuts, seeds, and fresh or dried fruits, are added, ...

s. All snacks are manufactured at the Bluebird Foods factory in

Wiri, Auckland Wiri is a mostly industrial-commercial focused suburb in Auckland, New Zealand. It was formerly part of Manukau City until the merger of all of Auckland's councils into the ' super city' in 2010. The area was named after the chief Takaanini ...

History

Originally part of

Goodman Fielder Goodman Fielder is a joint Hong Kong/Singapore-owned manufacturer, marketer and distributor of bread, small goods, dairy products, margarine, oil, dressings and various food ingredients. Its main operations are in New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, ...

, and then bought by

Graeme Hart Graeme Richard Hart (born 1955) is a New Zealand billionaire businessman and the country's wealthiest person.Burns, Philp & Co Burns Philp (properly Burns, Philp & Co, Limited) was once a major Australian shipping line and merchant that operated in the South Pacific. When the well-populated islands around New Guinea were targeted for blackbirding in the 1880s, a new ...

, Bluebird Foods was purchased by snack-food and beverage giant PepsiCo for NZ$245m in July 2006. Prior to that, Burns Philp tried to sell Bluebird Foods to

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

with the

Uncle Tobys Uncle Tobys is an Australian food manufacturing company which specialises in breakfast oat products. Since its foundation in 1861, the company has expanded its product range across the cereal and ready-to-eat snack market. Uncle Tobys is currentl ...

sale. Nestlé was not interested and bought only the Uncle Tobys business. In October 2005, Bluebird Foods acquired Krispa and Aztec from Hansells NZ. This made Bluebird Foods one of the largest snack food manufacturers in New Zealand. May 2006 saw Nestlé purchase the Uncle Tobys brand for NZ$1.1 billion. Bluebird Foods was able to use the Uncle Tobys brand until May 2007. Later in 2008, the company starting using foil to wrap most of their chips instead of the soft plastic material previously used. However, the soft plastic material is still used for corn snacks, such as Twisties, Burger Rings and Rashuns.

Marketing

In 2009, Bluebird Foods teamed up with The Rock radio station and rebranded "The People's Chip" campaign from Australia’s radio presenter duo

Hamish & Andy Hamish & Andy are an Australian comedy duo formed in 2003 by Hamish Blake and Andy Lee. Best known for their various drive time radio programmes on the Hit Network, which aired in multiple formats until 2017, their shows gained consistently h ...

. In Australia, the chip flavour as voted for by listeners was gravy, while in New Zealand the flavour selected was

marmite Marmite ( ) is a British savoury food spread based on yeast extract, invented by the German scientist Justus von Liebig. It is made from by-products of beer brewing ( lees) and is produced by the British company Unilever. Marmite is a vegan ...

and cheese – a flavour already produced by Walkers in the UK, who have the same parent company as Bluebird Foods.

Brands

Current brands

* Bluebird Original Cut Chips — ready salted/chicken/salt & vinegar/sour cream & chives/green onion *

Burger Rings Burger Rings are a type of corn-based, burger-flavoured Australian snack food distributed by The Smith's Snackfood Company, which, in turn is owned by PepsiCo. History Burger Rings were introduced in 1974. During the late 1990s the Burger ...

— corn snacks *

Cheezels Cheezels are a brand of Australian snack food currently produced by Snack Brands Australia. Made from corn and rice, they are a crisp puffy ring with a strong, savoury cheddar cheese flavour and aroma. They are similar in texture to cheese puf ...

— cheese corn snacks *Copper Kettle — potato chips * Delisio *

Doritos Doritos () is an American brand of flavored tortilla chips produced since 1964 by Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. The original Doritos were not flavored. The first flavor was Toasted Corn, released in 1966, followed by Taco in ...

Cheetos Cheetos (formerly styled as Chee-tos until 1998) is a crunchy corn puff snack brand made by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin invented Cheetos in 1948, and began national distribution in the U.S. The initi ...

Grain Waves A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legu ...

(multigrain chips) *

Lay's Lay's is a brand of potato chips, as well as the name of the company that founded the chip brand in the United States. The brand is also referred to as Frito-Lay because both Lay's and Fritos are brands sold by the Frito-Lay company, which has b ...

— made in New Zealand (under license). Sold at Costco * Le Snak *

Nobby's Nobby's is Australia's largest nuts brand, manufactured by The Smith's Snackfood Company, the Australian snacks division of PepsiCo. Nobby's products are typically sold in supermarkets as well as pubs. Their beer nuts pack claims to have at ...

— peanuts and cashews, imported from fellow PepsiCo company, Smith's Chips in Australia *Poppa Jacks *

Red Rock Deli Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

— imported from fellow PepsiCo company, Smith's Chips in Australia * Rollups * Ruffles — made in New Zealand (under license). Sold at Costco *

Smith Staxs Smith may refer to: People * Metalsmith, or simply smith, a craftsman fashioning tools or works of art out of various metals * Smith (given name) * Smith (surname), a family name originating in England, Scotland and Ireland ** List of people w ...

— imported from fellow PepsiCo company, Smith's Chips in Australia *

Twisties Twisties are a type of cheese curl corn-based snack food product, available mainly in Australia, and other Oceanian countries such as Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji, the Southeast Asian countries Malaysia, Thailand, Singap ...

— corn flavoured snacks * Rashuns * Krispa Chips

Discontinued brands

* Aztec Corn Chips — replaced with Doritos * Biguns *

CC's CC's (pronounced ''sea-seas'' and short for “corn chips”) is an Australian brand of flavoured tortilla chips produced since the early 1980s, originally by The Smith's Snackfood Company, and currently by Snack Brands Australia. CC's are predo ...

corn chips — replaced with Doritos * Party Corn Chips * Sensations * Uncle Toby Chewy

References

External links

* {{PepsiCo Food manufacturers of New Zealand Food and drink companies based in Auckland Manufacturing companies based in Auckland PepsiCo subsidiaries New Zealand brands