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McCormick Foods celebrated the 90th birthday of the Aeroplane Jelly brand with a party at Luna Park this week.

The celebration took place in the backdrop of Luna Park’s 1930s funhouse Coney Island, reflecting the nostalgia intrinsically linked to the product, and guests enjoyed a contemporary take on the Aeroplane Jelly song featuring the ‘girl on a swing’, along with a range of jelly-based desserts.

The most memorable desserts of each decade since the company’s inception were recreated for the event, including the classic trifle of the 1930s, the flummery of the 1940s, the jelly salad of the 1950s, the 'frog in a pond’ dessert of the 1970s, and of course, the jelly pool cake from the Women’s Weekly 1980 Children’s Birthday Cake book.

The jelly brand has its roots in humble, yet unconventional beginnings. Tram driver Bert Appleroth mixed the first Aeroplane Jelly crystals in 1927, distributing them to people along the tram line. In the decades that followed, Aeroplane Jelly became well-known in Australian households via the distinctive use of sound, animation and imagery.

To celebrate the brand's anniversary, McCormick has also released limited edition packaging which revisits the original designs of Aeroplane Jelly boxes.

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McCormick Foods MD Paris Golden said Aeroplane was acquired from Traders in 1994.

Golden said that in addition to the brand’s icons, continued product innovation has helped the Aeroplane Jelly brand to thrive over the last 90 years.

“At some point we have all enjoyed a sweet Aeroplane memory,” he said.

Aeroplane Jelly product innovations include the release of Low-Calorie Jelly to help diabetics in 1953, the creation of Australian native fruit flavours like lilly pilly, quandong and midjinberry for the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations, the production of ready-to-eat jelly packs in 2006, and now the release of ‘glitter-jelly’ in 2017.

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Golden, who described McCormick as the custodian of the Aeroplane Jelly brand, said 24 million packets of Aeroplane Jelly are sold each year, and Australians have consumed enough Aeroplane jelly in 2016 alone to have filled five Olympic-sized swimming pools. 

Some historic highlights:

  • 1938 saw Joy Wigglesworth (nee King) beat over 200 other children at a talent show to be chosen to sing the iconic “I like Aeroplane Jelly...” song”, which had first aired on the radio in 1930. [ In 2008, the 'I like Aeroplane Jelly' song was added to the national film and sound archive as one of the iconic sounds of Australia.]
  • 1942 saw Aeroplane Jelly’s first animated commercial of the much loved character of 'Bertie the Aeroplane’, named after founder Bert Appleroth. Bertie is so synonymous with Aeroplane Jelly that he is still seen on the packaging today. Bertie was created by Eric Porter, whose daughter, Gaby Porter, voiced ‘Bertie the Jet’ in a later commercial.
  • In 1950 came the appearance of the 'whistling boy’ on the jelly packaging, a picture of Tommy Dawes who had been a runner-up in the 1938 talent quest.
  • 1960 saw seven-year-old Barbara Ann Llewellyn swing into Australian popular culture as she featured in the famous ‘girl on a swing’ television advertisement, mouthing along to the original 1938 song.

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