Meadow Lea

Meadow Lea is one of Australia's leading brands of polyunsaturated margarine spreads, founded in Sydney by 1932 and owned since 1986 by the Australasian food public company Goodman Fielder.

History

The brand Meadow Lea was founded by Oliver Triggs by 1932 in Enmore, Sydney, but had its origins about 4 years earlier in Richmond, Melbourne, where Triggs owned a small Grocery store.^[1] In about 1934 Triggs hired James (Jim) Armstrong as a Sales Manager (on commission) for the N.S.W. country regions. In 1941 Triggs and Armstrong reached an agreement whereby Armstrong would sell his approximate 25% sales commission share in the Meadow Lea Margarine Company to Triggs' son when he turned 21 in 1945. In 1945 Armstrong sold his commission interests in Meadow Lea to Triggs' son Kenneth (Ken), with Armstrong retiring from the company. In about 1956 Oliver and Ken Triggs sold the Meadow Lea Margarine Company to Vegetable Oils Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the publicly listed company Allied Mills Ltd. On 30 April 1986 Allied Mills was taken over by Fielder Gillespie Davis Limited, part of the Goodman Group Ltd (New Zealand), to create Goodman Fielder Ltd. In 1987 Goodman Fielder Ltd purchased Wattie Industries Ltd (New Zealand), becoming Goodman Fielder Wattie Ltd, only to divest Wattie Foods Ltd to H. J. Heinz Company in 1992 and return to being called Goodman Fielder Ltd. In 2003 Goodman Fielder Limited was acquired by Burns, Philp & Company Limited, being relisted again in 2005.

Products

In 2010 the MeadowLea® product range consisted of 6 varieties:

• Original
• Salt Reduced
• Canola
• Light
• Extra Light
• Dairy Free

Oliver Triggs

Oliver Francis Triggs (1895-1962) founded the Meadow Lea table margarine brand by 1932 and was the first person in Australia to manufacture table margarine, finally selling Meadow Lea to Allied Mills in about 1956. Triggs was born in Melbourne on a small farm, fought with the Light Horse in WWI, then trained as a talior, before opening a corner grocery shop and making copha butter, moving to Sydney in about 1931 when copha butter was banned in Victoria (to support the butter industry and pure butter sales). He was married to Nita Alice Bek (1895-1974) and had four children, Kenneth, Audray and Marian (twins), and Jill. From about 1935 until 1975 the family home was Edgewater, 3 Sutherland Crescent, Darling Point, bought from the Wirth Bros Circus family, with its water front gardens (including a tennis court and swimming pool) being sold to the neighbouring Carthona in about the 1950s when Edgewater was divided into three homes (one on each floor) with Triggs retaining the top floor. In about 1939-45 Triggs owned the 2,000-acre Kyalla Park sheep farm and horse stud near Orange, which had the first electrified sheep shearing shed in Australia (built in about 1910 by the previous owners, the Stuart family), being slowly divided up and sold off by its subsequent owner, so that it is now around 150 acres and owned since about 1980 by the Napier family.

Ken Triggs

Kenneth Oliver Triggs OAM (1924 - ) the only son of Oliver Triggs, was a director and 25% shareholder in Meadow Lea from 1945 until the company's sale in about 1956. He subsequently became a farmer and Chairman of the NSW Egg Board, a manufacturer of polystyrene containers, Chairman of Mutual Home Loans Fund of Australia Limited and Information Electronics Limited, and from 2003 the Secretary of the Auburn RSL sub-Branch, for which he was made a Life Member of the RSL in 2008 and received the Order of Australia Medal in 2011.^[2][3] He was married in 1950 to Ruth Donnison (divorced c1976, with two sons, David and Andrew) and in c1985 to Anne-Lesley Woodward.

HMAS Sea Mist

HMAS Sea Mist was a Halvorsen Cruiser built by Lars Halverson in 1939 for motor racing identy Hope Bartlett. It was commandeared by the navy when war broke out and after much haggling Hope Bartlet was paid 4000 pounds notwithstanding a loyds valuation of 5,500 pounds. Having been commandeered by the Australian Navy in 1942 when Japan entered WWII she was credited with the sinking of the Japanese midget submarine during its attack on Sydney Harbour on 30 May 1942. Sea Mist was built in 1939 by Lars Halvorsen of Neutral Bay, In 1942 it had a machine gun mounted on it. After the War radio station 2GB bought her for the use of personality Jack Davey, Since this time she has had several owners and refits . The Munro Family who have owned her since 1982 commissioned a major rebuild and refit on her 60th birthday in 1999 and at the time of writing in August 2011 she is in pristine condition, moored at RQYS Manly

Meadow Lea house

The Art Deco heritage listed residential home named Meadow Lea at 22 Sydney Road, East Lindfield, Sydney, was built on 4 housing plots and completed in about 1941 for James Armstrong, at the time the Sales Manager of the Meadow Lea Margarine Company. It was sold in 1948 for £17,000 to Azzalin Romano, of the nightclub restaurant Romanos, who had sold his racehorse Bernborough in 1946 to Louis B. Mayer for £93,000. In 1955 the house was sold for £25,000.^[4] In 1996 it was purchased by Victoria's Basement co-founder Daniel Kalanderian, who added a new wing and placed it for sale in September 2010 for $7.5m with Belle Property.^[5]

References

1. ^ Sydney Morning Herald obituary, 1962 (and other press articles).
2. ^ It's An Honour website listing
3. ^ Parramatta Advertiser, 26 January 2011
4. ^ "Trophy estate with trimmings" by Jonathan Chancellor, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September, 2010.
5. ^ Belle Property website listing, September 2010.

External links

• Meadow Lea - official website
• Goodman Fielder - Meadow Lea web page
• Spread the Facts - website by Goodman Fielder
• Kyalla Park - official website