About Nestlé Smarties Giant Reindeer Tube
About Nestlé Smarties Giant Reindeer Tube
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The story of Nestlé Smarties Giant Reindeer Tube
The tube with antlers
Plenty of British stockings had a tube of Smarties in them somewhere, usually down by the toe, usually rattling. This one has dressed up as a reindeer, which is only fair at Christmas. You know the drill. Pop the lid, tip a few into your hand and promise yourself you will save the rest. Nobody saves the rest. Then comes the argument about which colour is best, which has never been settled and never will be. It is the old Rowntree's favourite, and a bit of a UK Christmas morning in your hand.
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Rowntree's, 1937
Smarties were introduced by Rowntree's in 1937. Rowntree's was the York confectionery firm whose roots go back to a cocoa and chocolate business Henry Isaac Rowntree bought in York in 1862. The same firm gave Britain Kit Kat, which began in 1935 as 'Chocolate Crisp' and is still produced at Nestlé's factory on Haxby Road in York. So Smarties turned up in very good company, two years behind the Chocolate Crisp. The bar only got round to telling everyone to have a break in the late 1950s.
Enter Mackintosh's of Halifax
In 1969 Mackintosh's of Halifax, West Yorkshire, merged with Rowntree's. Mackintosh's was the firm that launched Quality Street in 1936. Yes, that tin, the one passed round after Christmas dinner until somebody gets told off for taking two. Together they became Rowntree Mackintosh. In 1988 Nestlé acquired Rowntree Mackintosh, bringing Kit Kat, Quality Street, Smarties, Rolo and Aero into its British portfolio. Not a bad bit of shopping, that.
From Vevey to the stocking
Nestlé itself goes back to Henri Nestlé, a German-born pharmacist who settled in Vevey, Switzerland, and developed an infant food, Farine Lactée, in 1867. The modern company was formed in 1905, when his firm merged with the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company. It is a long road from there to a reindeer full of Smarties under the tree, but here we all are. If a tube in the stocking was part of every Christmas you grew up with, this is how you keep it going.