The Chiko Roll is an Australian savoury snack, inspired by the Chinese egg roll and spring rolls. It was designed to be easily eaten on the move without a plate or cutlery. The Chiko roll consists of beef, celery, cabbage, barley, carrot, corn, onion, green beans, and spices in a tube of egg, flour and dough which is then deep-fried. The wrap was designed to be unusually thick so it would survive handling at football matches. It was originally called a "Chicken roll" despite not containing any chicken
then later renamed "Chiko Roll". At the peak of their popularity in the
1960s and 1970s, tens of millions of Chiko Rolls were sold annually in
Australia, and the product has been described as an Australian cultural
icon.
The Chiko Roll was developed by Frank McEncroe, a boilermaker from Bendigo who turned to catering at football matches and other outdoor events. In 1950, McEncroe saw a competitor selling Chinese chop suey rolls outside Richmond Cricket Ground
and decided to add a similar product to his own line. McEncroe felt
that the Chinese rolls were too flimsy to be easily handled in an
informal outdoor setting, and hit upon the idea of a much larger and
more robust roll that would provide a quick meal that was both
reasonably substantial and easily handled. The result was the Chiko
Roll, which debuted at the Wagga Wagga Agriculture Show in 1951.
In the 1960s, McEncroe moved to Melbourne with his family where he
began to manufacture the rolls with the help of a sausage machine. As
the product became more popular, McEncroe moved to a larger factory with
more modern equipment in North Essendon and later merged with a local
company called Floyd's Iceworks to form Frozen Food Industries Pty Ltd.
The new company went public in 1963.
By 1965, most Australian takeaway restaurants and fish and chip shops carried Chiko Rolls,
with the marketing slogan 'Grab a Chiko' signifying the ease with which
shop owners could take a Chiko Roll from the freezer and pop it into a
fryer and slide it into its own trade mark bag. At the height of their
popularity in the 1970s, 40 million Chiko Rolls were being sold
Australia-wide each year and more than one million were exported to
Japan.
Increasing competition in the Australian takeaway food market in
recent decades has seen a decline in the profile of the Chiko Roll, but
they are still widely available at fish and chips shops and supermarkets
across Australia.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
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