A Violet Crumble shown shattered after hitting a hard surface.
Abel Hoadley opened a jam factory in South Melbourne, in 1889, trading as A. Hoadley & Company. By 1895, business had expanded rapidly and Hoadley built a five-storey premises, the Rising Sun Preserving Works. He produced jams, jellies, fruit preserves, candied peels, sauces, and confectionery and employed a workforce as large as 200. By 1901, there were four preserving factories and a large confectionery works. Hoadley had acquired the firm of Dillon, Burrows & Co and extended his products to vinegar, cocoa, and chocolate. In 1910, the jam business was sold to Henry Jones Co-operative and in 1913, Hoadley's Chocolates was formed.
The same year, Hoadley produced his first chocolate assortment and packed them in a purple box decorated with violets, in tribute to his wife's favourite colour and flower. Within the box assortment was a piece of honeycomb that became so popular that Hoadley decided to produce an individual honeycomb bar.
This proved trickier than first thought because, as the pieces of honeycomb cooled, they absorbed moisture and started sticking together. This hygroscopic nature of honeycomb led Hoadley to eventually dip his bars in chocolate, to keep the honeycomb dry and crunchy, creating the Violet Crumble bar in 1913.
Hoadley wanted to call his new bar just Crumble, but as it was not possible to protect that name with a trademark he used his wife's favourite flower and registered the name Violet Crumble. It had a purple wrapper with a small flower logo.[citation needed] It was an instant success. Violet Crumbles are crispier in texture than Crunchie bars, with a slightly more marshmallow taste.
Hoadley's Chocolates was acquired by English company Rowntree's in 1970, which produced Violet Crumble in Adelaide until 1985.[2] Rowntree's was acquired in 1988 by Nestlé, which moved production to the northern Melbourne suburb of Campbellfield.
On 11 January 2018, Robern Menz purchased the Violet Crumble brand and its associated intellectual property, plant and equipment for an undisclosed sum,[3] and production restarted on 10 October 2018.[2]
Timeline
1913, Hoadley's Chocolates made the first Violet Crumble bar in Melbourne.
1972, Hoadley's Chocolates was acquired by Rowntree's and became known as Rowntree Hoadley Ltd.
1989, Nestlé acquired Rowntree's. The Rowntree chocolate brands were initially branded as Nestlé-Rowntree until Nestlé dropped "Rowntree".
2009, Nestlé changed the shape of the Violet Crumble to a wider, flatter bar. The honeycomb formulation was also changed to make it shatter into small pieces when bitten into.
2010, Nestlé included the popular Violet Crumble “bags” product (not the bars) on their list of deleted products[4]
2012, an attempt at regaining name and recipe rights for the Violet Crumble was made by young entrepreneur Bryan Hoadley, a descendant of Abel Hoadley.[citation needed]
2018, in January Robern Menz announced their plans to acquire the rights and equipment to take over production and commenced production in October.
2019, in March bags of Violet Crumble went on sale, for the first time in nine years, in independent grocery stores such as IGA.[5]
Packaging
The hygroscopic nature of the honeycomb centre was problematic. Competitors tried to prove the bars were not fresh by squeezing them. Hoadley responded by instituting a strict coding system to keep track of the shelf life (12 months) and ensure that deteriorated bars were not sold. He also searched worldwide for a new type of airtight wrapper that would keep the bar fresh. Eventually French company La Cellophane invented a moisture-resistant metallised cellophane especially for Violet Crumble.[citation needed]
Production
The honeycomb is produced and conveyed into an air-conditioned area where it is cut into bars, then goes through chocolate-coating machines. The bars are double-coated to seal the honeycomb from the air. Cooling tunnels take the bars to the automatic wrapping machines.[citation needed]
Bertie Beetle, a small chocolate bar sold at stores and shows around Australia, was introduced in 1963 to use up broken pieces of Violet Crumble.
^"Nestlé Deleted Products"(PDF). Nestlé. p. 1. Archived from the original(PDF) on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 25 September 2013. NESTLE Violet Crumble bags NESTLE Violet Crumble Bar
1 Currently manufactured by General Mills in the U.S. and Canada. Produced by Cereal Partners under the Nestlé brand elsewhere. 2 Brand owned by General Mills; U.S. and Canadian production rights controlled by Nestlé under license. 3 U.S. production rights owned by The Hershey Company. 4 U.S. rights and production owned by the Smarties Candy Company with a different product. 5 U.S. rights and specific trade dress owned by Nestlé; rights elsewhere owned by Associated British Foods. 6 Produced by Cereal Partners, branded as Nestlé. 7 Produced by Cereal Partners and branded as Nestlé in the U.K. and Ireland. Produced by Post Foods elsewhere. 8 Philippine production rights owned by Alaska Milk Corporation. 9 Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai production rights owned by Fraser and Neave. 10 Used only in Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. 11 Used only in the Philippines. 12 U.S. production rights owned by the Ferrara Candy Company. 13NA rights and specific trade dress to all packaged coffee and other products under the Starbucks brand owned by Nestlé since 2019. 14 Brand owned by Mars, sold by Nestlé in Canada. 15 Produced by Froneri in the U.S. since 2020.
