The story behind NZ’s obsession with chocolate fish

No other country in the world has embraced the chocolate fish quite like New Zealand.

The chocolatey, marshmallowy treat is as entrenched in Kiwiana culture as L&P and pavlova.

So where did the chocolate fish come from and how did they become the preferred reward for our good deeds?

Thingee on the Son of a Gunn show had a voracious appetite for chocolate fish.

NZ on Screen

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Senior writer at the Spinoff Alex Casey has been chewing over the story and told RNZ’s Nights the first sighting of chocolate fish goes back to the 19th century.

“It appears to all be traced back to a man named Richard Hudson, who was UK-born, moved to New Zealand in the 1860s, and established a bakehouse in Dunedin. And eventually he branched out to chocolate manufacturing too, I think in about 1884.”

At that time, advertisements for chocolate fish started to appear, she says, for Hudson’s Chocolate Fish. Eventually Hudson’s merged with Cadbury.

“When they demolished the Cadbury factory in Dunedin, they found very early chocolate fish moulds, which, you know, get that to Te Papa.”

The phenomenon of them being a popular treat or enticement started to emerge in the 1920s, Casey says.

“The earliest I could find it being dished out as some kind of reward was, I think, 1929 at Pohanga Valley Rifle Club, if you can believe that.”

Fast forward to the 1960s and chocolate fish were caught up in a decimalisation scandal.

“When we swapped over from the pound to the New Zealand dollar, the price of chocolate fish went up and it caused an enormous uproar. I found all these different letters to the editor about the price increase.”

The makers claimed the price hike would be accompanied by an increase in size, but New Zealand punters weren’t convinced they were getting value, Casey explains.

“There was a lot of upset and it even actually made it to Question Time in Parliament at one point. The country was completely up in arms.”

In the 1990s chocolate fish had another moment entering the dictionary for the first time and being further popularised by Thingee on the Son of a Gunn show.

“He [Thingee] lived off them. I interviewed Jason Gunn as a part of the story and he said that at the height of the Son of the Gunn show, they were getting thousands of chocolate fish in the mail from kids around the country who just wanted to feed Thingee.”

While there are examples of chocolatiers making fish-shaped treats around the world, they don’t have the dame cultural heft as here in New Zealand, Casey says.

“It’s tied to ritual, and I feel like it’s tied to a part of the New Zealand character, recognising a job well done, or saying thank you, in a way that just no other country could ever match.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand