Nwicker60
24-Sep-11, 11:22
The makers of the nostalgic Highland Toffee brand find themselves in a very sticky situation in the market place
THE sad news on the commercial front that the company, which manufactures the famous Highland Toffee has gone into administration, for the second time in five years, another victim of the recession.
The very mention of the product brought back a flood of fond memories to me and doubtless to many other senior citizens. McCowans Highland Toffee, a hard toffee bar wrapped in its distinctive green and white livery, was a delight.
I couldn’t hazard a guess at how many of them were consumed by the Donaldson children but it must certainly have run into hundreds. They were devoured towards the end of the week, Friday night fun, we called it. No school for two days and no pressure on homework. You got a whole bar for 3d and we often put it into the oven to melt it, making it more chewy.
You could get a chocolate-coated version for 4d...but the 3d version was the more popular. I can still remember taking our rationing book to Donnie Miller’s shop just around the corner of Thurso Street, in Francis Street. It’s not just me who is smitten by the sweet Highland Toffee nostalgia.
Apparently, they are a hit with many ex-pats paying a visit home, from Australia and Canada. Parents are also frequent visitors to the Candy Box in Inverness, to name but one retail outlet, to make up boxes for sons and daughters serving in Afghanistan.
It’s not the first time that McCowans have been in trouble. The company merged with another Scottish sweet maker, John Millar and Sons, after both firms went into receivership in 2005. But the amalgamated concern ran into difficulties within a year. However, the administrators managed to hammer out a deal which safeguarded the firm’s two sites in Broxburgh and Stenhousemuir, saving up to 140 jobs.
The recipe for Highland Toffee was created by Andrew McCowan who started making sweets a home and selling them to local shops around the turn of the last century. By the outbreak of World War 1, the Stenhousemuir entrepreneur was making table rock, snowballs, lollipops and macaroons. It wasn’t until the late eighties that he hit upon the idea of small chews and world-famous Highland Toffee was born..
The traditional rectangular bar has since dropped, in favour of a meagre, inch by six inches strip and the product is also marketed in caramel and fudge. I have to say, though, that personally, I don’t think the toffee is as creamy as it was in my young day but, McCowans Highland Toffee is McCowans Highland Toffee, and as it makes a contribution to the war effort, then perhaps it ‘s time the Scottish Government intervened to help save a traditional Scottish toothsome treat. (No doubt, dentists would not agree, but then again, it must have put a little business their way).
What about it Alex...could be a vote-catcher!
Who could forget the sweet challenge of putting a whole Penny Dainty into your mouth and being able to masticate it slowly . (no jokes about my mouth’s capacity to accommodate such a massive sweet, please). You couldn’t speak for a while, until the toffee melted and you got into your chewing stride. An inability that ways gave our parents a break!
If you’ve got a lip-smacking memory of the famous toffee, feel free to share it on the forum.
*Like me, you might have yet again been subjected to that highly embarrassing performance by Ceri Rees on the X Factor, on Sunday.
Without wishing to be unkind, it is patently obvious that she can’t sing, so why did we have to watch her fourth, fruitless, and painful attempt at stardom.
Questions must be asked about the producers of the show who are supposed to weed out the acts they think they have potential, in earlier, non-broadcast stages of the competition. By rights, the 54-year-old should have been discounted at the very first audition, not repeatedly taken back to foist this non-starter, on the programme’s millions of fans
Ceri was clearly hurt when she was turned down yet again on Sunday and it need never have happened. The producers have, I gather pursued her, again and again to come on the show, so what’s their motives?....what is to be gained for cruelly deluding her that she has star quality? It is some sort of sick motive, in letting the public see how terrible she? Does it do something for the viewing figures? There would have been no disgrace in telling her, as tactfully as possible, that she hasn’t got what it takes to hit the bigtime, at the very first hurdle.
Most of us can’t sing for toffee (excluding McCowans, of course) and there’s no disgrace in that. Some have it, some don’t. You might have thought the producers were trying to demonstrate that everyone gets a chance but that doesn’t hold water as many wannabees are rejected in the off- camera quest, to find the unrecognised talent that has that je ne sais quoi factor.
So please ITV, put Ceri out of her misery and let the show concentrate on the hopefuls who do have that star quality potential.
It’s embarrassing for the panel who have to adjudicate on those that don’t. I have to admit that I was ecstatic , a good few X Factor programmes ago, when a rather frumpy figure came onto the stage to do her stuff. Simon Cowell wore a derisory expression on his face, that seemed to say, “Here comes another no-hoper” and he later admitted he had been sneering. But he got his comeuppance when she opened her mouth to embark on a stunning, quality, performance of the classic Cry me a River. Her name- Susan Boyle.
THE sad news on the commercial front that the company, which manufactures the famous Highland Toffee has gone into administration, for the second time in five years, another victim of the recession.
The very mention of the product brought back a flood of fond memories to me and doubtless to many other senior citizens. McCowans Highland Toffee, a hard toffee bar wrapped in its distinctive green and white livery, was a delight.
I couldn’t hazard a guess at how many of them were consumed by the Donaldson children but it must certainly have run into hundreds. They were devoured towards the end of the week, Friday night fun, we called it. No school for two days and no pressure on homework. You got a whole bar for 3d and we often put it into the oven to melt it, making it more chewy.
You could get a chocolate-coated version for 4d...but the 3d version was the more popular. I can still remember taking our rationing book to Donnie Miller’s shop just around the corner of Thurso Street, in Francis Street. It’s not just me who is smitten by the sweet Highland Toffee nostalgia.
Apparently, they are a hit with many ex-pats paying a visit home, from Australia and Canada. Parents are also frequent visitors to the Candy Box in Inverness, to name but one retail outlet, to make up boxes for sons and daughters serving in Afghanistan.
It’s not the first time that McCowans have been in trouble. The company merged with another Scottish sweet maker, John Millar and Sons, after both firms went into receivership in 2005. But the amalgamated concern ran into difficulties within a year. However, the administrators managed to hammer out a deal which safeguarded the firm’s two sites in Broxburgh and Stenhousemuir, saving up to 140 jobs.
The recipe for Highland Toffee was created by Andrew McCowan who started making sweets a home and selling them to local shops around the turn of the last century. By the outbreak of World War 1, the Stenhousemuir entrepreneur was making table rock, snowballs, lollipops and macaroons. It wasn’t until the late eighties that he hit upon the idea of small chews and world-famous Highland Toffee was born..
The traditional rectangular bar has since dropped, in favour of a meagre, inch by six inches strip and the product is also marketed in caramel and fudge. I have to say, though, that personally, I don’t think the toffee is as creamy as it was in my young day but, McCowans Highland Toffee is McCowans Highland Toffee, and as it makes a contribution to the war effort, then perhaps it ‘s time the Scottish Government intervened to help save a traditional Scottish toothsome treat. (No doubt, dentists would not agree, but then again, it must have put a little business their way).
What about it Alex...could be a vote-catcher!
Who could forget the sweet challenge of putting a whole Penny Dainty into your mouth and being able to masticate it slowly . (no jokes about my mouth’s capacity to accommodate such a massive sweet, please). You couldn’t speak for a while, until the toffee melted and you got into your chewing stride. An inability that ways gave our parents a break!
If you’ve got a lip-smacking memory of the famous toffee, feel free to share it on the forum.
*Like me, you might have yet again been subjected to that highly embarrassing performance by Ceri Rees on the X Factor, on Sunday.
Without wishing to be unkind, it is patently obvious that she can’t sing, so why did we have to watch her fourth, fruitless, and painful attempt at stardom.
Questions must be asked about the producers of the show who are supposed to weed out the acts they think they have potential, in earlier, non-broadcast stages of the competition. By rights, the 54-year-old should have been discounted at the very first audition, not repeatedly taken back to foist this non-starter, on the programme’s millions of fans
Ceri was clearly hurt when she was turned down yet again on Sunday and it need never have happened. The producers have, I gather pursued her, again and again to come on the show, so what’s their motives?....what is to be gained for cruelly deluding her that she has star quality? It is some sort of sick motive, in letting the public see how terrible she? Does it do something for the viewing figures? There would have been no disgrace in telling her, as tactfully as possible, that she hasn’t got what it takes to hit the bigtime, at the very first hurdle.
Most of us can’t sing for toffee (excluding McCowans, of course) and there’s no disgrace in that. Some have it, some don’t. You might have thought the producers were trying to demonstrate that everyone gets a chance but that doesn’t hold water as many wannabees are rejected in the off- camera quest, to find the unrecognised talent that has that je ne sais quoi factor.
So please ITV, put Ceri out of her misery and let the show concentrate on the hopefuls who do have that star quality potential.
It’s embarrassing for the panel who have to adjudicate on those that don’t. I have to admit that I was ecstatic , a good few X Factor programmes ago, when a rather frumpy figure came onto the stage to do her stuff. Simon Cowell wore a derisory expression on his face, that seemed to say, “Here comes another no-hoper” and he later admitted he had been sneering. But he got his comeuppance when she opened her mouth to embark on a stunning, quality, performance of the classic Cry me a River. Her name- Susan Boyle.