Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company

Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing

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Type	Private
Industry	Food
Founded	Melbourne, Victoria 1898
Headquarters	Berkeley Vale, New South Wales, Australia Auckland, New Zealand
Key people	Kevin Jackson, CEO
Products	Weet-Bix Up & Go Peanut butter So Good Marmite
Revenue	A$300 million
Number of employees	1700
Website	Sanitarium Australia Sanitarium New Zealand

The Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing Company is the trading name of two sister food companies (Australian Health and Nutrition Association Ltd and New Zealand Health Association Ltd). Both are wholly owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Founded in Melbourne, Victoria in 1898, Sanitarium has factories in a number of locations across Australia and New Zealand, producing a large range of breakfast cereals and vegetarian products. All the food products it manufactures and markets are plant derived or vegetarian.

Its flagship product is Weet-Bix, a top-seller in the Australian and New Zealand breakfast cereal market.

Sanitarium launched soy milk under the brand So Good in 1985 and has maintained market leadership of the soy milk category in supermarket in both Australia and New Zealand.

Up&Go, a breakfast drink, was launched in 1997 is a successful and growing brand in the breakfast cereal category in both Australia and New Zealand.

Sanitarium has produced and marketed many food products throughout its 100+ year history including peanut butter, vegetarian meals, snacks and beverages.

The company also operated health food shops in a number of cities, closing them in the 1980s.

History

Sanitarium factory at Cooranbong, New South Wales

During her time in Australia, pioneer Adventist Ellen G. White's son Willie convinced Seventh-day Adventist Edward Halsey, a baker at John Harvey Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, to immigrate to Australia.

Halsey arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, on 8 November 1897. He rented a small bakery in Melbourne, and produced Granola (made of wheats, oats, maize and rye) and Granose (the unsweetened forerunner to Weet-Bix). He and his team sold it from door to door as an alternative to fat-laden or poor nutritious foods popular at the time.

The business relocated to larger premises in Cooranbong, New South Wales.

In 1900, Halsey transferred to New Zealand where he began making the first batches of Granola, New Zealand's first breakfast cereal, Caramel Cereals (a coffee substitute) and wholemeal bread in a small wooden shed in the Christchurch suburb of Papanui.

Sanitarium New Zealand and Sanitarium Australia are now separate companies, but work together.

Sanitarium has factories in a number of locations across Australia and New Zealand, including Berkeley Vale and Cooranbong in New South Wales; Carmel in Perth, Western Australia; Brisbane, Queensland; Christchurch; and Auckland. Weet-Bix was originally manufactured, from 1928, at 659 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt where until recent times Sanitarium signage could still be seen. This factory predates the purchase of Weet-Bix by Sanitarium in 1930. A factory was operating in Palmerston North in New Zealand, but closed in the late 1990s. The Hackney factory in Adelaide, South Australia was closed in October 2010.

Tax exemption

Neither the Australia nor the New Zealand Sanitarium companies pay company tax on their profits, due to their ownership by a religious organisation. On their official website Sanitarium defend their tax exemption with several points, stating they operate exclusively for charitable purposes, and that income tax exemptions are available to all companies and individuals in New Zealand who limit themselves to charitable purposes.

However, the exemption has been criticised and is considered unfair by their competitors.

Products

Breakfast beverages

Up & Go is the brand of a range of liquid breakfast products manufactured and marketed by Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company. The brand was the first product that established the category of liquid breakfast in supermarket and convenience stores in Australia and New Zealand. Many other brands have entered the category since the late 1990s and forced the brand to defend its market share.

In June 2013, Choice magazine released a study of 23 liquid breakfast products questioning the validity of claims that were made by manufacturers including Up & Go claims regarding fiber content. Sanitarium defended Up & Go in a release citing the current code of practice for nutrient claims that a product must contain a minimum of 3g of dietary fiber per serve to be considered "high in fiber" and Up & Go contained 3.8g of fiber per 250ml serving.

Breakfast cereals

• Weet-Bix, and its family of products:
  • Weet-Bix Bites Wildberry
  • Weet-Bix Bites Crunch Honey
  • Weet-Bix Bites Apricot
  • Weet Bix Bites Energize
  • Weet Bix Multi-Grain
  • Weet-Bix Oat Bran
  • Weet-Bix Hi-Bran
  • Weet-Bix Energize Hi-Protein
• Granola
• Granola Clusters
• Puffed wheat
• Honey Weets
• Skippy Corn flakes
• Skippy Ricies
• Light'n'tasty
• Muesli range (toasted, natural)
• Cluster Crisp Range (Toasted Oat Cereal)
• Weeties (relaunched 2008, previously kornies)
• Double Crunch Apple and Cinnamon (NZ)
• Double Crunch Apricot (NZ)
• GHF Vita Brits (NZ only)
• GHF Toasted Muesli (NZ)
• Fibre life Range
• Bran Bix
• Honey Puffs

Some older names, no longer produced:

• Gravy Quick
• NrG Cereal (NZ)
• Good Morning (NZ)
• Stamina (NZ)
• Maximize
• Lite Bix (NZ)
• Banana Ricies
• Favoured Water

Meals

• Deli Luncheon
• Breakfast&Lunch Today

Spreads

• Sanitarium Peanut Butter
• Peanuts Peanut Butter (USA)
• Natural Peanut Butter
• Marmite (NZ & Aus)
• Vitamite (Aus)

Marmite

Dairy alternatives

• So Good and its family of products:
  • So Good Coconut Milk
  • So Good Ice Cream
  • So Good Lite
  • So Good Almond Milk
  • Flavoured So-Good
  • Organics Simply Soy
  • Rice Milk

Meat alternatives

• Vegie Delights range, which includes four kinds of vegan sausages
• Savoury Lentils
• Tender Pieces
• Casserole Mince
• Country Hotpot
• Vegetarian Sausages
• Nutmeat
• Nutolene
• Rediburger
• Sanitarium brand nuts and confectionery

Yogurt

• Up & Go Breakfast Yoghurt

See also

• Health food
• Health food store
• Macrobiotic diet

Further reading

• Parr, R., & Litster, G. (1996). "What Hath God Wrought!": The Sanitarium Health Food Company Story. Sanitarium Health Food Company. ISBN 0646259792. 463 pages.

External links

• Sanitarium Australia
• Sanitarium New Zealand

• "Australian Health and Nutrition Association Ltd", Bloomberg
• "...New Zealand Health Association Limited trading as Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company...", sanitarium.co.nz