Polo (confectionery)

Last updated
Polo Mints
Polo Mints logo.png
Polo mint.jpg
Product type Breath mint
Owner Nestlé
CountryUnited Kingdom
Introduced1948;76 years ago (1948)
Previous owners Rowntree's
Tagline"The mint with the hole"
Website nestle.co.uk/polo

Polo is a brand of breath mint whose defining feature is the hole in the middle. The peppermint flavoured Polo was first manufactured in the United Kingdom in 1948, by employee John Bargewell at the Rowntree's Factory, York, and a range of flavours followed. The name may derive from "polar", referencing the cool, fresh taste of the mint. Polo mints are also sold in other countries such as India and Sri Lanka by Nestlé. [1] [2] Polo mints are usually sold in a 34g pack containing 23 individual mints.

Contents

History

Polo mints were developed by Rowntree's, after their war-time licence to manufacture Life Savers expired. [3] [4] Polo fruits followed soon afterward. [5] [6] Company legend is that the name is derived from 'polar' and its implied cool freshness. [7]

Varieties

Over the years Rowntree and Nestlé have come up with variations of the original Polo mint. Some of these have been successes, whereas others have failed. None has been as successful as the original Polo mint.[ citation needed ]

Before this, Rowntree had already experimented with different Polos in the 1980s. Polo Fruits were always available, but they briefly made:

Description

A Polo is approximately 1.9 centimetres (0.75 in) in diameter and 0.4 centimetres (0.16 in) thick, with a 0.8-centimetre (0.31 in)-wide hole. The original Polo is white in colour with a hole in the middle, and the word 'POLO' embossed twice on the upper flat side of the ring, hence the popular slogan The Mint with the Hole.

Ingredients of the main variety include sugar, glucose syrup, modified starch, stearic acid (of vegetable origin), and mint oils.[ citation needed ]

Packaging

An open packet of Polo mints Polo mints.jpg
An open packet of Polo mints

Polos are usually sold in individual packs of 23 mints, which measure about 10 cm tall. The tube of Polos is tightly wrapped with aluminium foil backed paper. A green and blue paper wrapper, with the word 'POLO', binds the foil wrapper, with the Os in 'Polo' represented by images of the sweet. For the spearmint flavour, the paper wrapper is turquoise in colour, and the Extra Strong flavour is in a black paper wrapper.

Trademarks

When the Trade Marks Act 1994 was introduced in the United Kingdom, Nestlé applied to register the shape of the Polo mint. The application featured a white, annular mint without any lettering. This application however was opposed by Kraft Foods, the then owner of Life Savers, and Mars UK, because of the lack of distinctive character of the mint in question.[ citation needed ]

Nestlé's application was allowed to proceed if it agreed to narrow the description of the mint i.e. the dimensions of the mint were limited to the standard dimensions of the Polo mint and that it was limited to "mint flavoured compressed confectionery". [8]

Kraft Foods made a similar applications for annular sweets eg bearing the mark LIFESAVERS. Nestlé has tried to oppose this trademark application but failed as the court ruled that customers would be able to distinguish between a Polo and a Lifesaver as both have their marks boldly and prominently embossed on the mint.[ citation needed ]

Advertising

During the 1980s, Peter Sallis provided the voiceover for television advertisements. With the launch of the spearmint variety, a new television campaign featured a voiceover by Danny John-Jules, using a voice similar to the one he employed as the Cat on Red Dwarf .

In 1995, the company launched a major advertising campaign produced by Aardman Animations, which showed animated Polos on a factory production line. In one, a scared Polo without a hole attempts to escape, but is restrained by the hole punching machinery. Polo experimented with other forms of advertising in the end of the 1990s. In 1998, they collaborated with PolyGram for a compilation album, Cool Grooves, [9] which reached No. 12 in the UK Compilation Chart on 5 September that year. [10]

See also

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References

  1. "POLO". nestle.in. Nestlé. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  2. "polo". nestle.lk. Nestlé. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  3. Bennett, Oliver (9 August 2004). "Why we love things in mint condition". The Independent . Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 3 November 2014. When US troops were stationed over here during the war, Rowntree started to manufacture Lifesavers for them under licence. When the war drew to a close, the licence was withdrawn. So in 1947, Rowntree came up with its own brand of holey mint, the mighty Polo
  4. Fitzgerald, Robert (1989). "Rowntree and Market Strategy" (PDF). Business and Economic History. 18: 54. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2013.
  5. "Rowntree History". Nestlé. 4 November 2007. Archived from the original on 4 November 2007.
  6. "Meet the rest of our products". Rowntree's. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
  7. "A 'hole' lot of history – Polo turns 70!" (Press release). Nestte. 7 August 2018. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  8. Ward, David (27 July 2004). "A legal case with a hole in the middle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 May 2024. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
  9. http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/63830/Polo-sponsors-CD/ [ dead link ]
  10. "Chart Log UK: Various Artists (Compilations)". www.zobbel.de. Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 31 May 2012.