Search for Trio
A quest to find an ice cream of the 90s
Sitting at the breakfast bar in my Nan and Pop’s house in Safety Bay, with a brightly coloured plastic bowl in front of me, is how I best remember Peters Trio Ice Cream. A product of the 90s, my memory of its availability is fleeting. And yet, it is a core memory associated with my grandparents. For that reason, I decided to embark upon the search for Trio.
Trio Ice Cream. It is, I admit, an odd thing to research. And compared to my other stories, not that old. Perhaps that is why there is a surprising lack of information about it online. No product history lurking around on Wikipedia. No photograph. No historic advertising. It seemingly exists in memory; sparse references are found on Facebook, forums from the mid-2000s, and Reddit.
While Fred Peters started the Peters American Delicacy Company in 1907 in New South Wales, it was not until 1929 that he established a branch in Western Australia. Peters took over the Western Ice Company and began manufacturing ice cream in Perth soon after. In 1948, the company’s name changed to Peters Ice Cream (W.A.) Ltd. It expanded when it bought Brownes Dairy in 1962, and a factory was built in Balcatta in the 1980s.
Before its closure in 2009, Peters had manufactured ice cream in Western Australia for 80 years. A longstanding company meant that each generation experienced different products and flavours. Ice cream bricks and their advertising slogans (bring home a Peters brick, Dick!), Dixie Cups (later Peters Bucket), Choc Wedges of the 1950s, Drumsticks in the 60s, Twin Poles from the corner store (always shared), and habitual Wicked Sticks purchased from the school canteen.
Ice cream bricks eventually gave way to plastic tubs. Some flavours (such as vanilla) remained staples, while others came and went, tantalising experiments that seduced a generation before disappearing entirely. One such variety was Trio.
When I asked people about Trio, I received mixed reactions. Some thought I meant Neapolitan before realising it was an entirely different product. Perhaps age is a factor. It launched circa 1986 and remained a staple throughout the 90s until it was discontinued in the early 2000s.
After my initial search on the internet yielded no results, I turned to the State Library of Western Australia. They hold an extensive collection of Peters Ice Cream (W.A.) material. Folder upon folder stored within archival boxes containing absolute gems of nostalgia. Price lists, catalogues, labels, wrappers, cardboard boxes, advertisements, and promotional papers.
My first glimpse of Trio occurred as I perused price lists. Dated 18 March 1991, the wholesale price for a carton of six 2L tubs of ice cream was $2.98 each. Trio, product code 28332, continued to be listed (with intermittent price increases) until 2000. There was no image, but finally, I had confirmation of my memory, a firm period in which it was available.
I ordered a few specific files and decided to look through everything in the archival boxes that arrived. Some products I had never heard of. Others were instant blasts from the past. Ice creams and icy poles consumed by millennials in primary and high school. Staples of canteens in the 90s.
I set my hopes on one particular file: ‘Two litre ice cream container labels.’ I flicked through each plastic sleeve. A sheet of paper held several labels for various ice cream tub flavours. Some were manufactured over East. Some were manufactured in Balcatta. Towards the end, I turned over one sheet and gasped. There it was! In all its glory. A label that advertised a 25% bonus. 2.5L at a 2L cost. Trio Ice Cream.
I finally had an image of the elusive Trio. Unfortunately, the label did not specify the flavours. Lime, vanilla, and…orange? Mandarin? Grapefruit? Tropical? Sherbet? Each person I asked had a different opinion. I thought it was orange-flavoured, an assumption likely made because of its colour. With no clear answer, the search would continue.
My plan to uncover the flavour was to look for advertising. Surely an early advertisement would describe the product. To help my search, I had to find a firm date for its launch. Without a firm date, newspaper searches (on microfilm, as most newspapers from the 1980s are not on Trove) would be tedious and a little like digging around in the proverbial haystack.
I returned to the State Library two more times. During the second visit, I thumbed through internal marketing memos from the late 80s and early 90s. Some notices announced new products or discontinuations. Others emphasised the importance of promotions and of beating Streets. One page, dated October 1986, listed Trio as one of the top four selling varieties of the 2L tubs. It gave me an approximate time frame for its release.
The third visit involved me looking through more records from the 80s. An annual report released in 1986 referred to the difficulties the company faced. A cooler summer, additional sales taxes on ice cream, and teething problems with their new factory affected the result of the 1985/1986 financial year. Despite the downturn, there was hope they would bounce back with the establishment of the Research and Development Division, which was responsible for creating new products.
None of the archival documents pointed to a release date. I poured over more advertising and promotional material. Most of them undated, I did find another image of Trio, positioned alongside other ice cream flavours in various-sized tubs.
Leaving the Leah Jane Cohen Reading Room, I made my way to a microfilm reader and skimmed through some 1986 editions of The Daily News. I found nothing. Later, I looked back over the marketing memos I photographed. Both mentioned tv advertising. Was I looking in the wrong spot? Did Peters instead advertise on television?
In 2004/2005, the company printed a glossy brochure celebrating 75 years of Peters Ice Cream in Western Australia. Whereas the Eastern States’ companies amalgamated, Peters remained independent in W.A. It employed over a thousand people, was a top-performing brand, and was proud of producing locally made products.
So next time you’re faced with a selection of West Australian and Eastern States ice creams, make the right decision. Peters and Pauls.
Five years later, Peters Ice Cream manufacturing in Western Australia was gone. The products were instead brought in from Victoria. They were undoubtedly identical. Regardless, according to many people, they were not the same.
Chatting about Peters Ice Cream inevitably led me to ask: “Do you remember Trio?” “Yes!” was often the enthusiastic reply. Faces lit up with the remembrance of that tri-coloured ice cream of the 90s. It almost always led to sharing memories of other ice creams and icy poles. Conversations sprinkled with happy reminiscences of childhood treats.
There was only so much time I could dedicate to Trio. While I finally found some photos of it, I could not confirm the flavour of the orange. One friend suggested that an artificial flavouring may have been used, perhaps causing it to taste differently depending on a person’s palette. I’m inclined to agree with them. Nevertheless, not having the answer seems fitting. My stories tend to have an ‘unsolved’ or ‘mystery’ theme attached to them; why should an ice cream of the 90s be any different?
Update: thanks to The Dusty Box subscriber, Michelle, and her Dad, who worked for Peters for 40 years, the mystery has been solved! The flavour used for the orange colour was called Jaffa Orange. Jaffa Orange was a variety of orange developed by Arab farmers in the mid-19th century. It was named after the city it was cultivated in - Jaffa.
Special thanks to everyone I spoke to over the past month and those who left comments on social media. Hearing and reading your ice cream or icy pole memories has been a joy.
Sources:
History of Peters Ice Cream courtesy of the Peters Ice Cream website: https://www.peters.com.au/about-peters/
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, c1992 Peters ice cream factory tour adventure kit – Blue Bell ice cream coloring book – promotional material for the Peters Group; ACC 8218A/16
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, Marketing News, Date range: 1986 - 1990; ACC 8218A/45
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, n.d. Colour photographs and scans of Peters, Pauls, Weis products. 22 items; ACC 6851A/11
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, Not allocated; ACC 6851A/26 [my note: file containing price lists]
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, n.d. Collection of wall and freezer posters, and promotional material for Peters ice cream products. 31 items; ACC 6851A/50
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, n.d. Two litre ice cream container labels. In alphabetical order by ice cream name; ACC 6851A/48
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, 1986 Peters (WA) Limited Annual Report. (A set of annual reports is in the Battye Library serials collection); ACC 6851A/22
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, n.d. Collection of wall and freezer posters, and promotional material for Peters Group of Companies, Pauls ice cream and dairy products, Brownes dairy products; ACC 8218A/2
State Library of Western Australia, MN 2560, Peters (W.A.) Ltd. records, n.d. File of promotional material for various products, incomplete; ACC 8218A/19
Hi Jessica! My dad has worked for Peter’s and Brownes for over 40 years! He said that mystery orange flavour in trio was Jaffa orange, the green was lime and the white vanilla. Hope that solves your flavour mystery!
I'm 60 years old. I clearly remember Trio icecream being around in the 70s when I was a kid. I liked the lime, my sister liked the orange (I thought it was apricot or peach) and Dad ate the left-over vanilla, with all colour carefully removed. We used to get Neapolitan sometimes too but Trio was preferred.