Kiwi Sweet Treats
Every country has its sweet treats and New Zealanders are no different…many you will only find within the shores of Aotearoa.
SWEETS
Pineapple Chunks Created in Oamaru during the 1950s by Charles Diver at the Regina Confectionery Company, originally made to use up leftover marshmallow, by flavouring it with pineapple and coating it in chocolate.
Jaffas Small, sugar-coated crisp orange shells filled with solid dark chocolate, made famous at Dunedin’s Cadbury factory and for many years the festival on the world’s steepest street - the annual Baldwin Street Jaffa race. Sadly since July 2025 Jaffas are no longer made in New Zealand!
Chocolate Fish Pink or white strawberry marshmallow shaped like a fish and enrobed in chocolate. Over time they have become the token of Kiwi token of gratitude Give that person a chocolate fish!
DRINKS
Lemon & Paeroa also known as L&P Created in 1907 in Paeroa by combining natural effervescent mineral water from a local spring with fresh lemon juice. It’s rcipe has changed over the decades but its a firm Kiwi fave.
Fresh Up was born in 1962 with the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board faced with a surplus of process-grade apples unfit for export, they pressed and canned the juice rather than let the apples go to waste. As the brand evolved, processors began balancing the natural sweetness of NZ apples with sharper citrus, introducing beloved blends like Apple & Orange. Fresh Up had transcended its orchard origins to become a cultural fixture.
Raro began in the 1960s as a canned juice, born from New Zealand’s investment in orchards in the Cook Islands. Dunedin manufacturer W. Gregg & Co. processed the harvest in Rarotonga and shipped it south. Freight costs made shipping canned liquid across the Pacific impractical and Gregg’s pivoted, turning the trusted island name into dehydrated beverage crystals. Today its a family favourite with kids often eating the crystals straight from the sachet.
BEST OF THE REST
The Pavlova: While the trans-Tasman rivalry never sleeps, culinary researchers (notably Dr Helen Leach from the University of Otago in Dunedin) proved the earliest printed recipes for the modern, marshmallowy meringue-based dessert named after Anna Pavlova originated in Dunedin, New Zealand in the late 1920s.
Kiwi Onion Dip: Created in the late 1950s by Rosemary Dempsey, an in-house home economist for Nestlé NZ. She famously blended a packet of Maggi Onion Soup mix with a can of Nestlé Reduced Cream and a dash of lemon juice or vinegar.
Hokey Pokey Ice Cream While the name "hokey pokey" was patented as a honeycomb toffee in Dunedin by confectioner William Hatton in 1896, the ice cream emerged in the 1950s.
Its rise dates to 1953 Dunedin, where ice cream maker Brian Simon was experimenting at his family’s Newjoy Ice Cream Company. Inspired by American candy-blend ice creams, Simon sourced crushed, broken Crunchie Bar pieces from the nearby Cadbury Fry Hudson factory and folded them into plain vanilla.. The recipe was perfected by Tip Top cementing Hokey Pokey as New Zealand’s undisputed favourite scoop..
Custard Squares: A very Kiwi adaptation of the classic French mille-feuille, reimagined with thick, set egg custard sandwiched between pastry and generously coated in passionfruit or vanilla icing, usually with dusted with coconut.