In 1980, an article in The Age reported that Californian supergroup, The Beach Boys, demanded that they be supplied with smoothies at every performance venue. The writer, Kerry Wakefield, felt it necessary to explain the term, calling it a “West Coast milkshake”. Even in the US, it was apparently little-known beyond the West Coast. “Nobody around here knew what a smoothie was,” a Washington promoter said.
Like many Australian food trends, the smoothie was invented in the USA. The word, first used in the 1920s, initially described a person, usually a man, with an easy and slightly suspect charm. Then the blender was invented, with the first commercially successful model, the Waring Blender, released in 1937. From the 1940s, blended drinks were often called smoothies, and the first recipes for banana and pineapple versions were included in the Waring Blender cookbooks.
Many early recipes had little to do with health. A 1950 recipe for a Samba Smoothie included melted semi-sweet chocolate, bananas, coffee and ginger ale. The Strawberry Velvet Smoothie contained semi-frozen evaporated milk, strawberry milkshake flavouring, lemon juice and half a cup of sugar. In the 1960s, during the counterculture health food boom, fruit juices and yoghurt replaced the sugar and artificial flavourings.
The smoothie’s great leap forward in the USA began in the early 1970s, when Steve Kuhnau, who had a dairy allergy, created an alternative to the milkshake, using fruit juice, whole fruits and ice, with added vitamins. He opened his first Smoothie King store in 1973, and the enterprise went on to become an international chain.
It’s not clear exactly when the first commercial smoothie was made in Australia, but the earliest references seem to be in the 1980s. In 1981, The Australian Women’s Weekly published an article purportedly written by the Barry Humphries character Dame Edna Everage, in which she gives the recipe for her healthy breakfast banana smoothie. She gushes:
Smoothies have swept the upper echelons of Australia in a quiet way lately, but my little friend and health adviser, Robbo, of the Rivergum Health Shop, Lorne (Vic), practically invented them although it was my idea to add the lecithin to help keep my wonderful performances regular.
By 1982, Sydney’s Tucker Box restaurant was offering a banana smoothie, and the first edition of Australia the Beautiful cookbook included a recipe for an avocado smoothie. In 1984, Mrs Sippy’s in the Strand Arcade, Sydney, was making milkshake-style smoothies in banana, strawberry, peach, rockmelon, pineapple and coconut, and apricot.
The real boom came later. In 1997, Breville, famous for their Kitchen Wizz and sandwich maker, introduced the Smoothie Drink Mixer, with an action powerful enough to reduce even tough vegetables to a semi-liquid. In 2000, the juice bars Boost Juice and Viva Juice were launched, with smoothies a key part of their product offering. Almost any fruit and/or vegetable could be included, along with whey protein, wheat grass, spirulina or other exotic ingredients. The green smoothie had arrived.
According to IMARC Group research, Australia’s smoothies market size reached $US 483.30 million in 2024, and is expected to hit $US 743.40 million by 2033. And that’s not counting the millions of smoothies being produced in our home kitchens. Looks like the smoothie is here to stay.