Top Awards Flow For Tip Top Ice Cream

New Zealand's Tip Top Ice Cream has won top recognition as an international leader in best-practice for sales and marketing.

The Childs Davidson Group, Australia's leading specialist strategic marketing and sales consulting and benchmarking firm, has presented Tip Top with a prestigious gold Peregrine Award for excellence in best-practice.

Tip Top is one of only two Australasian companies to receive the award, following a benchmarking study of 15 major manufacturers in Australia and New Zealand.

The awards have been developed to recognise organisations actively demonstrating strong leadership in best-practice, for the sales and marketing functions. The awards are set against solid criteria and carry the endorsement of the Australian Quality Council.

Tip Top was one of six leading New Zealand companies involved in the study. British American Tobacco (BAT) of Australia also receives a gold award.

"Receiving a Peregrine Award is a significant achievement for any organisation, and clearly demonstrates a strong commitment to best-practice," says Childs Davidson's Managing Director, Marc Childs.

"These companies are being compared by Childs Davidson (www.childsdavidson.com) against world class organisations in the UK, Europe, the US and other markets. The standards are very high."

The Judges highlighted 4 key areas where Tip Top has outstanding best-practice.

* Marketing and Brand Planning * Channel Plans * Product Development * Field Sales Force Planning

The Peregrine gold caps a big week of top honours for Tip Top Ice Cream. The company also collected four awards at this year's Massey University Food Awards, in Auckland.

Tip Top won the top prize - the Premier Award - for its Memphis Meltdown ice creams. The manufacture of Memphis Meltdown (involving several layers of chocolate) is a world first. The product has now been awarded a patent by the US Patent Office.

Tip Top also won the Dairy Category Award (Memphis Meltdown) and the Food Innovation Award (Memphis Meltdown). Tip Top's Jelly Tip (2 litre) was among the highly commended products.

Chris Taylor, General Manager - Marketing, says the awards reflect the company's determined bid to make innovative products in a professional and fun work environment.

Mr Taylor says Tip Top is now enjoying strong growth and sales following millions of dollars of investment in new technology. Since the recent success of Memphis Meltdown, the company has increased the capacity of its straight-line extrusion machine.

"We have invested more than $10 million in this new technology," says Mr Taylor

"As a result, we have doubled the capacity from 150/min to 300/min. This machine is now the most sophisticated, and the most flexible of its kind in the world."

MEMPHIS MELTDOWN

* Launched in 1997

* Since launch: 23 million sticks (Including NZ Novelty, Family Packs and Australia Novelty products)

* First 12 months: 7 million (Contributed by NZ, and 5 months performance of Australia)

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Chris Taylor General Manager - Marketing Tip Top Ice Cream PHONE: (09) 573 7200 MOBILE: 021 842 035 Email: ctaylor@tiptop.co.nz

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