Simplot, a family-owned American company, began as a one-man potato farming operation in 1929. John Richard Simplot left school at 14 and set up his first company, in southern Idaho, at the age of 20. He first dealt in fresh potatoes but in 1941 began producing dehydrated potatoes and onions for the US military. His company is credited with pioneering the first commercial frozen french fry in the late 1940s and by the late 1960s had become the major supplier of fries to McDonald’s.

In the meantime, Simplot expanded into the fertiliser business, and into the beef industry operating feedlots that initially used the waste from the company’s potato processing plants. It is now a broad-based food and agribusiness organisation employing some 13,000 people, with branches in Australia, Canada, Mexico, China, and several other regions.

Simplot began operations in Australia in 1995 by acquiring a range of local food brands from Pacific Dunlop’s Pacific Brands Food Group. The acquisition netted the company many brands that, four years earlier, had  been owned by Petersville Sleigh, including  Edgell, Birds Eye, Chiko,  Herbert Adams, Four’N Twenty, Big Sister, Nanna’s and Wedgewood pastries. Many of these brands had been Australian-owned since their inception.

The purchase also included the Australian division of Plumrose and its brands Leggo’s and Harvest, which had been acquired by Pacific Dunlop in 1993.  The Pacific Brands ice cream and yoghurt divisions were sold to Nestlé – but that’s another story. In 1997, a merger with Irvin & Johnson (I&J) created the second-biggest retail seafood brand in Australia.

Over following years, Simplot’s brand portfolio underwent some changes. Big Sister was the first to go, sold off in 2002. Then it was the bakery division, which included Four’n Twenty, Nanna’s, Wedgewood pastries and Herbert Adams, sold to Patties Pies in 2003. Temporarily back in Australian hands, these brands reverted to foreign ownership when Patties was sold to an overseas investment group in 2022. Also in 2003, Simplot acquired the Australian arm of the John West, Ally and Seakist brands from Unilever. The company’s timeline reveals further, short-lived forays into frozen foods, pizza, meat and online retailing.

Simplot’s products now include Birds Eye frozen fish and vegetables, Edgell canned vegetables, Harvest canned meals (think Irish stew or braised beef and onions), Leggo’s pasta, tomato paste and sauces, and Australia’s iconic snack food the Chiko Roll. Seafood brands are John West, I&J, Captain’s Catch, Seakist, Ally and Top Sail. In the sauce aisle, you’ll find Chicken Tonight, Five Brothers, Providore d’Italia and Raguletto.

The company now has manufacturing operations at Echuca in Victoria, Bathurst and Kelso in New South Wales and Devonport and Ulverstone in Tasmania. It employs 2000 people across the country, is a significant purchaser of Australian potatoes and other vegetables and is  Australia’s last frozen vegetable processor of any scale. And it produces more than 21 million Chiko Rolls a year – gotta love that! But the profits – well, they all end up in Idaho.