A few months ago it was announced with heavy hearts (and even heavier stomachs) that the Australian arms of the gigantic US food manufacturing conglomerate JR Simplot were contemplating shuttering two factories in Bathurst and Davenport due to “unsatisfactory financial returns arising from a very competitive food industry environment”.
The brand’s iconic portfolio of Australian food items likely to be in your pantry right now include Birds Eye, Edgell, John West, Leggo’s – but it was the Chiko Roll, Australia’s inconceivably dense and delicious answer to the spring roll – that was most at risk of death as a result of a competitive global food market.
Consumption of the “roll” consisting of beef, celery, cabbage, barley, carrot, corn, onion and green beans encased in batter bathed in chicken salt has dwindled drastically since peaking at 40 million units sold in the late 70s and was among the first products tipped to be phased out of production as part of the company’s restructuring policy.
In response to the Australian population not eating enough Chiko Rolls, the NSW State Government has done the company a solid and decided to help save what is essentially a culturally significant deep fried Irish stew stick and offered the company and its subsidiaries a series of payroll tax exceptions for the next three years through the NSW Regional Industries Investment Fund.
Simplot is expected to accept the deal which will also include energy and environmental stipulations. It is local jobs, however, that the state government is most concerned with.
“The Bathurst plant currently employs around 195 full time equivalent staff and makes a significant contribution to the local economy and to the local community,” NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner said.
If the deal fails, the state government is said to be in the process of brokering a mutually beneficial deal with Iain “Huey” Hewitson which would see him eat up to 30 million Chiko Rolls a year.
Long live the Chiko Roll.
