Do you know any lost or unpopular Aussie food and drink products?
For example, my mother tells me Portello was popular once upon a time as it was manufactured here. Ribena also seems to have lost relevance (at least from my perspective and people I know). What cuisine do you think has faded from the public consciousness?
I was in Malaysia a few years back and discovered Milo nuggets were still a thing. Infact they have so much more Milo snacks than we do.
Milo is ingrained into children from young in Malaysia. When I was growing up they used to send milo trucks round to schools at recess or lunch time and we would queue up for free cups of milo.
I heard about the milo trucks. Why didn't we have those in Australia?
@Clear: Because all the kids here much rather preferred little bottles of plain milk that were sitting in the sun until recess.
The Milo from those trucks are always so good, even my mum says she can't replicate it 😂 damn, miss those days
@hippocrit: Nah, hawker's use heaps of condensed milk but it's a different flavour.. Probably some secret ratio of evaporated as well haha
Nestle shenanigans.
They pulled the same dodgy marketing shenanigans with baby formula in third-world countries where they pushed the notion that formula milk was better than mums milk, offering free formula etc. led to all sorts of and social issues etc.
(profanity) Nestle.
In Adelaide 20 years ago. We used to get Milo Popup stores/trucks during the odd primary school sports day or kids cricket match.
They used to send Vitagen trucks to my school but that was back in the 80s!
They still do send the trucks! I was teaching in Kuala Lumpur and one day I heard all the kids outside chanting "Milo! Milo! Milo!". I look out and there's a truck serving everyone Milo. it was the most bizarre thing to me. Ended up taking a photo with all the kids and their Milo
Philippines love Milo a ton too
I've been chasing the OG milo bar since it died. Every time something comes out, I'm disappointed.
Those new KitKats are OK, still nothing compared to the king.
https://snackezy.com.au/products/snackezy-omg-bar-75gm
Its a knockoff, all the reviews are super positive but its $6 and backordered.
remember the milo bars…they were actually ok
Portello not an aussie creation, it just failed to hit the aussie market. Just as Dr Pepper.
Both are fantastic. But Coke tends to rule over the market.
Except in SA, farmers union ice coffee rules 😉
lethal on the guts
@Save Medicare: i thought so too, but i can drink normal milk, even chocolate milk, with no problems. i drank 2 litres of chocolate milk in one sitting and i was fine, it's only farmers union that troubles me.
@[Deactivated]: you might want to get checked, everyone i know who is lactose intolerant is similar, some things no issues, other things wreck them
@bgbrendan: not really much point. 60 bucks for a doctor to fob me off after 5 mins to a test, then they say "yeah you are" or "nah you aren't" when i can just avoid farmers union and be fine.
Pauls Territories Own Iced Coffee or it's nothin'!
That's because SA is the farmers union
Portello is fantastic. But only occasionally. Vanilla coke is the same. There's something about coke that prevents it from becoming monotonous.
It's probably the cocaine /jk
Irn Bru wins in Scotland.
You can go buy Portello right now in any shop that sells Sri Lankan groceries. Loads of them here in Western Sydney. Probably in similar shops for several other countries, too.
my local IGA and the one near work sell it in Canberra, makes me very happy as it is my favourite. not great for diet though.
I found a sugar free portello at my local IGA.
@gromit: Yeah I love it. I don't drink full sugar soft drink (except rare occasions) but it tasted just as I remember it. Brand is diet rite. They also make diet cordials too.
Woolies sometimes got diet rite portello - zero sugar but not as good as SL Portello sugar bomb lol
It's been made continuously in Australia since the late 19th century - decades longer than Vegemite. At what stage do you consider a product made domestically to not have "hit the Aussie market" if more than a hundred years isn't long enough?
What was the fizzy Kmart used to sell in vending machines?
Australia's choice
Was their home branding for chips, choc chip cookies etc
Yes thats it lol
Australia's Choice soft drinks were awesome.
50c cans were the bomb. Their cookies were amazing too.
Australia's choice cola and Schweppes cola were amazing and much better than coke or pepsi….
I remember the Schweppes Cola 60 cent cans that had 60 cents written on the can.
And then some cheeky Deli's would try selling them for more than this price.
Those were originally 50c ;)
And the $1 600ml bottles which went up to $1.20
Speaking of kmart. Do you remember the isle full of lollies? You'd pick up a cup, fill it up with the lollies of your choice from the dispensers and paid like $2.
Those were the days!!
Wasn't that Target?
Security was always getting called to that area lol
I only ever went to kmart. Looks like Target had them too.
Oh man… I remember that. Memories.
Remember the old Fruit Boxes. While they were somewhat watery I'd never turn one down as a child. I can still taste the grape.
Pretty sure there was 0 nutritional value in those boxes
That image is a trip down memory lane!!
iSnack 2.0
Dick Smith tried hard to make patriotic foods. Did he survive?
He did, but not the fad he was trying to create…
A couple of the products survived, mainly the tomato sauce and the bush breakfast cereal, both renamed though.
the vegemite rip off was also good.
I always thought the name of his toothpaste product was quite funny (Dick Paste)
Good old Dick (head picture) Smith
To think that the D_ck Heads matches were made overseas… just the packaging was Aussie. Sneaky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_ckheads_%28brand%29
(need to change the underscore to the letter 'i', thanks to OzB profanity filter)
Do they still do wagon wheels? And starbursts?
They still do them, but they are about 1/3 the size…
You talking about the mini packs of 8? Can still get single, larger ones sold individually
You are 2/3s bigger
And I swear wagon wheels are twice as sweet too. Or maybe it's just me that's changed.
Me too! And they have a graininess that I don't recall the old ones having.
Starbursts got killed off this year. They were dead to me when Squirtz were discontinued.
America still has them I think. So order on Amazon.
They're just no longer distributed in Australia due to supply issues and the fact that we're not a significant market. They may return when supply issues are sorted.
@banana365: Yeah, that's why I was implying to Clear that they still exist, and you can still get them.
I miss Starburst.
Aldi have some as well.
Nippys make really good ginger beer, but it was always hard to find and haven’t seen it for a while.
Bush Biscuits have disappeared and are sorely missed..😩
Just eat a spoonful of plain flour if you want to remember what Bush Biscuits tasted like.
So glad they came to their senses and re-released burger men chips
(profanity) yeah, Burger Man was pretty much the only good reason to visit Queensland.
At least there’s a reason. Adelaide. 🤣
And Toobs!
Waiting on Sunnyboy now. Summer 2022 maybe?
I remember Sunnyboys, Glugs and Razzes at school. Noobs would buy them 10 mins before the end of lunch and would need to smash them into a brick wall to soften them up. lol
I miss Mint Freeze from Bundaberg Brewed Drinks. It was around sometime in the 90s. Unfortunate that it was only around for a year or 2.
Dang, I’m a fan of mint. Never saw that.
I remember as a kid what ruled the milk bar and the canteen was the paddle pop frozen thick shake cups.. if I couldn’t get a paddle pop cup I would get a slush puppy
Where’s George? Gone for a Tosca.
Thankfully the scorched peanut bar is back - that was a disgrace that it was ever off the market.
Wife rates it, im pushing the kids to vegemite though
Hard disagree. Vegemite all the way.
apparently ozemite is the new vegemite, vegemite is now foreign owned and possibly made outside of aus (cant be bothered to fact check that) but ozemite is still made here.
Vegemite was bought back from Kraft by Bega a couple a years ago. Made in Australia.
@mskeggs: thanks for that, wasn't aware. regardless, i've heard that ozemite tastes better, but i don't know as i haven't had vegemite in years and i don't think i've ever had ozemite
@Baysew: Is ozemite the dick smith one that was made by diluting a spoonful of Vegemite into a jar of edible Vaseline?
Vegemite has always been made in Melbourne.
@zombrex: Yep. Visited a work site nearby in Port Melbourne this year. The smell carries through the car park.
Yep. I've tried them all - Promite, Marmite (UK and SA), Ozemite - and reckon Vegemite is the best.
I slathered this on my sandwiches as a kid, not a huge vegemite fan, but promite hit the spot.
Edit: just saw that it's only different than vegemite through sugar addition, no wonder I was an obese kid.
Milo nuggets. They came in sealed foil bags and were basically lumps of milo covered in chocolate.
There's also the OG Milo bar: not the cereal kind, but the choco bar kind.
https://www.change.org/p/nestl%C3%A9-bring-back-the-original…