 | |
| Owner | McVitie's |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Introduced | 1932 |
| Tagline | P...P...P...Pick up a penguin! |
| Website | Official website |
Penguins are milk chocolate bars filled with biscuit and chocolate cream. They are produced by Pladis' manufacturing division McVitie's at their Stockport factory.
William Macdonald founded Macdonald Biscuits in Glasgow in 1928. After seeing some biscuits from Antwerp he was inspired to create a chocolate covered biscuit with a chocolate cream sandwich in the centre. [1] They were first produced in 1932, and became a McVitie's product a few years after MacDonald was taken over by United Biscuits in 1965. Each wrapper has a joke or "funny fact" printed on it and imaginative, often humorous designs featuring penguins that often pastiche famous works of art.
The Tim Tam, produced by Arnott's in Australia and first sold in 1964, was based on the Penguin. [2] Occasional media references include tongue-in-cheek debates over which is the superior biscuit. [3] [4]
During the 1980s, the Penguin brand became known for their television advertising slogan "When you're p-p-p-peckish, p-p-p-pick up a Penguin!” [5]
In October 1996, Penguins were the subject of a court case between Asda and United Biscuits, who accused Asda of passing off their own brand "Puffin" biscuits as part of the Penguin brand. In March 1997, the court found in favour of United Biscuits regarding passing off, but found that Asda had not infringed the Penguin trademark. [6]
United Biscuits had been criticised for continuing to use trans fatty acids in the cream filling of Penguins. [7] By December 2007, United Biscuits began to advertise the absence of trans fats from Penguins, having removed the ingredient from this product line. [8]
The front of the wrapper typically has a penguin on it. The back of the wrapper typically has a joke. [9]
There are three variations of the biscuit: [10]
In June 2003, McVitie's produced several "sub brands" or variations of the Penguin biscuit: Penguin Chukkas, Wing Dings, Flipper Dipper, Splatz and Mini Splatz. These variations were accompanied by a £5 million promotional campaign. [12] In January 2008, McVitie's also produced Penguin triple chocolate wafers. [13]
A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
A biscuit, in many English-speaking countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa but not Canada or the US, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include biscotti, sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, and speculaas.
A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi-sweet biscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two doctors to aid digestion. The term digestive is derived from the belief that they had antacid properties around the time the biscuit was first introduced due to the use of sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient. Historically, some producers used diastatic malt extract to "digest" some of the starch that existed in flour prior to baking.
A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, light biscuit, often used to decorate ice cream, and also used as a garnish on some sweet dishes. They frequently have a waffle surface pattern but may also be patterned with insignia of the food's manufacturer or may be patternless. Some chocolate bars, such as Kit Kat and Coffee Crisp, are wafers with chocolate in and around them.
Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, England. It is produced globally by Nestlé, except in the United States, where it is made under licence by the H. B. Reese Candy Company, a division of the Hershey Company.
An ice cream sandwich is a frozen dessert consisting of ice cream between two biscuits, wafers, soft cookies, or other baked goods. The ingredients are different around the world, with Ireland using wafers and the United States commonly using cookies.
Jaffa Cakes are a cake introduced by McVitie and Price in the UK in 1927 and named after Jaffa oranges. The most common form of Jaffa cakes are circular, 2+1⁄8 inches (54 mm) in diameter and have three layers: a Genoise sponge base, a layer of orange flavoured jam and a coating of chocolate. Each cake is 46 calories. Jaffa Cakes are also available as bars or in small packs, and in larger and smaller sizes. The original Jaffa Cakes now come in packs of 10, 20, 30, or 40, having been downsized in 2017 from 12 or 24 per pack.
United Biscuits (UB) is a British multinational food manufacturer, makers of McVitie's biscuits, Jacob's Cream Crackers, and Twiglets. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In November 2014, the company was acquired by Yıldız Holding and is now part of Pladis.
McVitie's is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name is derived from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie & Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888.
Quality Street is a line of tinned and boxed toffees, chocolates and sweets, first manufactured in 1936 by Mackintosh's in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was named after J. M. Barrie's play Quality Street. Since 1988, the confectionery has been produced by Nestlé. Quality Street has long been a competitor to Cadbury Roses, which were launched by Cadbury in 1938. Nestlé does not distribute Quality Street in the US, but it may be ordered online for delivery, or found in specialty candy shops.
Tim Tam is a brand of chocolate biscuit introduced by the Australian biscuit company Arnott's in 1964. It consists of two malted biscuits separated by a light hard chocolate cream filling and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate.
Arnott's Group is an Australian producer of biscuits and snack food. Founded in 1865 by William Arnott, they are the largest producer of biscuits in Australia and a subsidiary of KKR.
Taxi was the name of a chocolate biscuit sold under the McVitie's biscuit brand. It was produced by the European food manufacturer United Biscuits. The bar consisted of layers of wafer, caramel, and chocolate creme, and was covered in chocolate, and was suitable for a vegetarian diet. Taxi used to be available in multi-packs using a yellow and blue wrapper, in a New York taxi cab style design.
Jacob's is an Irish brand name for several lines of biscuits and crackers in Ireland and the United Kingdom. The brand name is owned by the Jacob Fruitfield Food Group, part of Valeo Foods, which produces snacks for the Irish market. The brand name is used under licence by United Biscuits, part of Pladis and by Mondelez International in Asia.
Club is a range of chocolate covered biscuits, sold in the Republic of Ireland under the Jacob's brand name and in the United Kingdom under McVitie's.
A sandwich cookie, also known as a sandwich biscuit, is a type of cookie made from two thin cookies or medium cookies with a filling between them. Many types of fillings are used, such as cream, ganache, buttercream, chocolate, cream cheese, jam, peanut butter, lemon curd, or ice cream.
pladis Global is a British confectionery and snack foods company encompassing United Biscuits, Ülker, Godiva Chocolatier and DeMet’s Candy Company. It was formed in January 2016 as a subsidiary of Yıldız Holding with its headquarters in London, England. The company operates 24 bakeries in 11 countries and its products reach approximately 4 billion people worldwide in 120 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Jaffa Crvenka is a Serbian food company specialized in confectionery products and headquartered in Crvenka, Serbia. Its best-known product is Jaffa Cakes, based on the original McVitie's cakes and sharing the same name.