Paddle Pop is a brand of ice cream products made by Streets (now is owned by the British multinational consumer goods company Unilever) and sold in Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries. It is held for eating by a wooden stick which protrudes at the base and is known as a Paddle Pop stick (used commonly for arts and crafts and known also as a popsicle stick or craft stick). The brand has a mascot known as the Paddle Pop Lion who appears on the product wrapper.
Paddle Pops have been very popular since their launch by Streets in 1953, and the name has become one of the best known brands in Australia. It is Streets Icecream’s biggest volume item with A$70 million annual turnover.
Launched to the public in 1953, the brand had a 50-year anniversary in 2004 at which point it was one of the best known brands in Australia.
In 2005, there was a spin-off product which was the Paddle Pop flavour in a dairy snack form. Paddle Pops is now available in 20 countries, although other countries may sell them under different brands from Streets’ Heartbrand sister companies, Wall’s and HB Ice Cream.
Streets came to media attention in 2010 when they reduced the size of the Paddle Pop by 15%. Streets claimed that this was to make them healthier but others attribute it to food inflation.
In 1999, Paddle Pop was launched in Malaysia and Indonesia with a promotion that featured a unique thermochromic, glow in the dark plastic stick.
