Frank McEncroe
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Francis Gerard McEncroe (11 October 1908 – 14 March 1979) was an Australian publican, caterer, dairy farmer and food manufacturer. He is known for his invention of the Australian fast food phenomenon that became known as the Chiko Roll.


Early life and career

McEncroe was born at
Castlemaine, Victoria Castlemaine ( , non-locally also ) is a small city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region about 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest by road from Melbourne and about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the major provincial centre of Be ...
on 11 October 1908, the second son of
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
-born parents Pierce Francis McEncroe, a
wheelwright A wheelwright is a craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright", (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker or shaper of wood) as in shipwright and arkwr ...
, and his wife Sarah Ann, née Desmond. Frank attended a local primary and acquired his secondary education at Marist Brothers College, Bendigo, where he obtained his certificate of merit. He then completed an apprenticeship as a
boilermaker A boilermaker is a tradesperson who fabricates steel, iron, or copper into boilers and other large containers intended to hold hot gas or liquid, as well as maintains and repairs boilers and boiler systems.Bureau of Labor Statistics, US De ...
at Thompson's foundry, Castlemaine, where he worked for a time. During the Great Depression, McEncroe joined his father and two brothers on a dairy farm at Bendigo. In the late 1930s he ran an outdoor catering business, selling
pies A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sweet ...
,
pasties Pasties (singular pasty or pastie) are patches that cover a person's nipples and areolae, typically self-adhesive or affixed with adhesive. They originated as part of burlesque shows, providing a commercial form of bare-breasted entertainment. T ...
and other types of takeaway food at race meetings, country shows and similar gatherings. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
he was the licensee at the Court House Hotel in Pall Mall, Bendigo, while also holding a boilermaker's position at the Bendigo Ordnance Factory. Following the war McEncroe resumed his outdoor catering business, which he now ran from his family's former dairy farm, gaining experience in the processing, packaging and snap-freezing of takeaway foods.


Invention of the Chiko Roll

In 1950, inspired by
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
chop suey Chop suey () is a dish in American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, consisting of meat (usually chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or fish) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery a ...
rolls he saw being sold outside the Richmond Football Ground, McEncroe decided to try to develop a similar product of his own, one which he reportedly envisaged could be eaten with one hand while holding a beer in the other at a football match or other venue. The result was a product which was much larger and heavier than a conventional Chinese roll, but with somewhat similar ingredients and flavour. The roll was composed of "a mixture of cabbage, barley, carrots, celery, condiments and meat (beef or mutton) wrapped in an egg-batter dough".Dunstan. McEncroe initially prosaically named it the "Chicken Roll", but since it actually contained no chicken, he later reconsidered and dubbed it, simply, the "Chiko Roll". He launched his new product at the
Wagga Wagga Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 56,000 as of June 2018, Wagga Wagga is the state's la ...
Show in 1951. Later that year, McEncroe moved to Melbourne with his family and began producing Chiko Rolls with the help of a sausage machine from the back of a fish-shop in Moreland Road,
Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it ...
. As sales began to pick up, he set up a larger plant in a
Essendon North Essendon North is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Moonee Valley local government area. Essendon North recorded a population of 3,071 at the 2021 ce ...
factory, where he began to progressively modernise the machinery and improve packaging, freezing and distribution facilities. A mutually beneficial relationship with a local firm, Floyd's iceworks, resulted in the amalgamation of the two companies in 1960 to form Frozen Food Industries Pty Ltd. The new company went public in 1963.


Formula for success

Ingredients for the Chiko Roll were diced and extruded into a long tube of pastry which was then cooked as it made its way along the production line, after which the rolls were deep-fried and then snap-frozen prior to distribution. As a pre-cooked product, the rolls only required a rapid deep-fry at the place of purchase to reheat them. The convenience of selling and eating the rolls under all kinds of conditions, along with their novel savoury flavour, made them a highly popular alternative in an era when the fast food industry was rapidly expanding, and the Chiko Roll became a staple product of the ubiquitous Australian fish-and-chip shop as well as other takeaway food outlets for many years. By the late 1970s, 40 million Chiko Rolls were being sold Australia-wide each year, and more were exported to Japan. With the increasing diversity of fast food outlets over the last two decades, Chiko Rolls have gradually declined in popularity in Australia, but they can still be purchased in fish and chip shops, or as a frozen convenience food for home use from supermarket shelves. The Chiko Roll brand today is owned by Simplot Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the J. R. Simplot Company, a private food and agribusiness company based in
Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...
.About Simplot
– Simplot Australia website.


Personal life

McEncroe married Anne Doreen Nolan at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bendigo on 20 August 1932. He was fond of fishing and shooting as a young man, and later enjoyed playing golf at Medway Golf Club, Melbourne, and
Tweed Heads Tweed Heads is a town in New South Wales. It is located on the Tweed River in north-eastern New South Wales, Australia, in Tweed Shire, next to the border with Queensland and adjacent to its "twin town" of Coolangatta, which is a suburb of the ...
Golf Club,
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
. He died of
ischaemic heart disease Coronary artery disease (CAD), also called coronary heart disease (CHD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), myocardial ischemia, or simply heart disease, involves the reduction of blood flow to the heart muscle due to build-up of atherosclerotic pla ...
on 14 March 1979, and was buried at
Keilor Keilor is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Brimbank and Hume local government areas. Keilor recorded a population of 5,906 at the 2021 census. ...
cemetery, Melbourne, survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.


Footnotes


Recurring references


McEncroe, Francis Gerard (Frank)
– David Dunstan, Australian Dictionary of Biography Online. {{DEFAULTSORT:McEncroe, Frank 1908 births 1979 deaths Businesspeople from Victoria (state) People from Castlemaine, Victoria People from Bendigo Australian boilermakers 20th-century Australian businesspeople