Anchor’s Away

Anchor, an iconic global brand with century-old links to Cambridge, is up for sale.

It is expected to fetch millions of dollars and boost dairy giant Fonterra and its suppliers’ bottom line by millions of dollars.

Pukekura dairy farmer Garry How with a pound of Anchor butter at the commemoration stone laid to celebrate the creation of the brand in 1886. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

But before it goes, Pukekura residents want more done to acknowledge Anchor’s humble beginnings in Cambridge so the thousands of people who pass by the old buttery to and from Lake Karāpiro every year can appreciate its role in creating a global superstar.

Richard Reynolds

And the Te Awamutu grandson of the man who came up with the Anchor name back in 1886 agrees and reflected on how much he would be worth today if Henry Reynolds had not sold the name for £10,000 in 1896.

“I’d be a billionaire, that’s for sure,” said Richard Reynolds this week.

In typical corporate speak, Fonterra announced last week it was “exploring divestment options for its global consumer business”.

What the company meant was it is ditching brands like Anchor, Mainland, Kāpiti, Anlene, Anmum, Fernleaf, Western Star, Perfect Italiano and others to concentrate on its dairy ingredients business – processing, collecting and selling milk.

A new owner could help Anchor and the other commercial brands to flourish, the dairy co-operative announced, free up 15 per cent of the milk solids used to service them and potentially sell milk back to the new owners for more.

Robbie Hughes with modern day Fonterra products now on the market. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Paul and Lynne Garland, who live in the historic nearby Trecarne House, which was built by Richard Reynolds in 1877 and is now a Category two listed house, say they doubt most people in Cambridge have any idea about the links to Anchor.

At the site is a plaque – unveiled in 1961 – commemorating the 75th anniversary, a story board put up by Waipā District Council four years ago at the insistence of former councillor Grahame Webber and a Te Ara Wai sign with a QR code to find out more about the site.

Neighbour Robbie Hughes said after the factory closed in 1975, many of the adjacent buildings and houses were either removed or demolished. All that remains today is part of the factory which has been converted into a house.

Underneath the white paint on the house, you can still see from the road a large Anchor logo, said Paul Garland.

“If the factory was still a working factory or perhaps if someone had looked after it and kept it, it could have been a tourism attraction. But it’s a house now.”

The factory employed a lot of people in the district at its heyday. The story goes that when the first 100 pounds of butter were produced in November 1886, Reynolds chose the name Anchor when he saw a tattoo on an ex-sailor’s arm.

Within years Anchor butter was in Australia, China, Hong Kong and England with Reynolds building a special cool store at Hay’s Wharf in London where he distributed the butter himself to prevent it being sold as Danish butter.

New Zealand Dairy Association – the pre runner to Fonterra – purchased the Anchor brand when Reynolds struck financial difficulties. It transferred to Fonterra when the mega merger between Waikato-based New Zealand Dairy Group and Kiwi Co-operative Dairies took place in 2001.

Birthplace of Anchor butter: From left, dairy farmer Garry How, contractor Paul Garland and wife Lynne with Robbie Hughes who all live near the spot Henry Reynolds first produced Anchor butter. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Award winning campaign

A campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi Garland-Compton UK for Anchor Butter which ran in the 1970s was named among the 100 Great Advertisements of its time.

The judge said:

Firstly, because it is aimed at ordinary  housewives and uses the kind of media that  reach ordinary housewives. Like mass  circulation weekly women’s magazines. If you  stop to think about it, you will find that the  great majority of press advertisements that  win advertising awards  were aimed at men and used media such as the weekend colour  supplements. Not surprisingly, since most of  the people who created those advertisements  were men, belonging to (in income terms,  anyway) the same socio-economic group.  And those who nominated them, who voted  for them, and who gave them advertising  awards, also fitted the same description.

Secondly, because I believe that most  of today’s advertisements (and almost all of  those that win awards) are sadly deficient in  terms of brand registration which means  clearly identifying the advertiser and tightly  integrating his name with the brand benefit.

Thirdly, because few press campaigns  translate satistactorily into television -and  vice versa.

Selling a commodity like butter to an  audience that was probably defined as being  ‘All Housewives’ is not an easy task To do it  with style, coupled with powerful brand  registration, and to do it with absolute  consistency in a variety of media is no mean  achievement.

Deceptively simple in concept and  masterful in the simplicity of its execution,  this campaign is literally melting in its appeal  to anyone who cooks and who knows that a  knob of butter adds the finishing touch to almost any dish.

Anchor in the supermarket chiller.