FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE BISCUIT FACTORY - 70 Years of Griffin’s in the Hutt
7 March – 7 June 2009 / FREE ENTRY
Petone Settlers Museum, The Esplanade Petone / www.petonesettlers.org.nz

For over 70 years the Griffin’s Factory has been a sweet-smelling icon of Lower Hutt. The factory baked its first batch of biscuits in 1938 and in December 2008 the last Gingernut and Round Wine biscuits rolled off the assembly line.

The Biscuit Factory tells the story of the Lower Hutt factory through its people and its products, to commemorate the end of a biscuit-making era.

The exhibition is based around a photographic series by Alan Knowles entitled Biscuits – Cookies, Crackers & Gingernuts. Taken in 2001, the photos take viewers behind the scenes of Griffin’s Foods in Lower Hutt, from the factory floor to the cafeteria and even the payroll office. Information panels and a behind-the-scenes DVD explain the cookie-making process – at the height of production the factory churned out 750,000 biscuits a day.

In addition to Knowles’ work, there’s equipment from the factory, including cookie moulds, rotary cutters, historic promotional material and a 1930s wage book. Kids can test out their baking skills in our retro Cookie Bear playhouse kitchen. Classic commercials from the 1960s-80s are also on view, including the iconic ‘Amanda and Timothy’ series from 1987, thanks to the New Zealand Film Archive.

A memory book will be provided for visitors to record some of their own Griffin’s memories, along with the chance to win Sampler biscuit packs by guessing the number of Gingernuts in the jar.

“I’ve done everything from chocolate to icing to mellows, used to do macaroons, golden fruit, fruit fingers. They’re all gone. I’ve outlasted all of them. They were good biscuits.”
Alan Harris, No. 3 Oven Operator, 2002.

ENDS

Background Information
In 1938, Nelson-based Griffin & Sons Ltd built a new factory headquarters in Wainui Road, Lower Hutt. The factory had the first continuous automatic biscuit-baking oven in the southern hemisphere, which was used until the factory closed. The factory site had rose gardens, a goldfish pond and tennis courts and became known as “The Garden Factory”.

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