One of Australia’s favourite ginger beer brands, Bundaberg, has joined forces with New Zealand chocolatiers Whittaker’s for a delicious new product.
The brands have each lent their own winning formulations to create a brand new chocolate block in Bundaberg Brewed Ginger Caramel.
Featuring Whittaker’s velvety caramel, mixed through with Bundaberg’s ginger brew (minus the fizz) and coated in the NZ brand’s signature 5 Roll Refined Creamy Milk chocolate, it’s sure to be a hit.
Co-CEO at Whittaker’s, Holly Whittaker, said the brands’ shared traits as family owned businesses and focus on quality made them a great fit for collaboration.
“Whittaker’s is proud to use only the finest ingredients and make all of our chocolate at our one factory in Porirua, which enables us to control quality from roasting the cocoa beans ourselves to the finished products. Bundaberg Brewed Drinks’ similar approach in using locally grown ginger and even growing and harvesting some of its own ginger, sourcing only the best ingredients and making its products locally fits perfectly with our ethos,” she said.
This is the first major, trans-Tasman supermarket stocked collaboration for Bundaberg, who has so far supplied enough ginger brew to have filled 335,600 bottles of Ginger Beer. CEO John McLean (son-in-law of business founder Cliff Fleming) said the resulting product was one both brands were deeply proud of.
“Both family businesses have a long-standing commitment to excellence and are entrenched in the trans-Tasman way of life. It makes sense for Australia’s best soft-drink and New Zealand’s Most Trusted Brand to join forces, particularly during a time when consumers are looking for affordable ways to treat themselves,” he said.
“We’re very proud to be a part of this collaboration. We hope this will encourage Aussies and Kiwis to get together with loved ones to share some special moments, great food and delicious brews – while socially distancing, of course.”
The idea of a collaboration between the brands was first floated in 2018, before product testing kicked off last year. However COVID-19 created a few disruptions, forcing the pair to sample products and review packaging remotely, by sending these across the Tasman and holding product development meetings via Zoom.
Thankfully, while it may have forced some creative work-arounds, it hasn’t halted production and fans won’t have long to wait before the blocks hit Coles stores nationally from August 31.