Sanitarium Health Food Company
Encyclopedia
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
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...

.

Sanitarium produces a large range of breakfast cereal
Breakfast cereal
A breakfast cereal is a food made from processed grains that is often, but not always, eaten with the first meal of the day. It is often eaten cold, usually mixed with milk , water, or yogurt, and sometimes fruit but sometimes eaten dry. Some cereals, such as oatmeal, may be served hot as porridge...

s as well as a range of vegetarian
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...

 products. Founded in 1898, its flagship product Weet-Bix
Weet-Bix
Weet-Bix is a high-fibre breakfast biscuit manufactured in Australia and New Zealand by the Sanitarium Health Food Company, and in South Africa by Bokomo....

 is a top seller in the Australian and New Zealand breakfast cereal market.

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

Sanitarium has factories in a number of locations across Australia and New Zealand; some of these include Berkeley Vale
Berkeley Vale, New South Wales
Berkeley Vale is a suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the Wyong Shire local government area.Wyong Road is the main road that runs through Berkeley Vale...

, Cooranbong
Cooranbong, New South Wales
Cooranbong is a town and rural suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, and is located west of the town of Morisset off the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway....

, Carmel, Perth
Carmel, Western Australia
Carmel is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the Shire of Kalamunda.Prior to 1949 it was a stopping place on the Upper Darling Range Railway. The railway siding was originally known as Green's Landing after Perth businessman Levi Green, who had moved into the area in 1844...

, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

, Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

 and Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

. Weet-Bix was originally manufactured, from 1928, at 659 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt where until recently 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
Palmerston North
Palmerston North is the main city of the Manawatu-Wanganui region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is an inland city with a population of and is the country's seventh largest city and eighth largest urban area. Palmerston North is located in the eastern Manawatu Plains near the north bank...

 in New Zealand, but closed in the late 1990s. The Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

 factory in Hackney
Hackney, South Australia
-References:...

 was closed down in October 2010.

History

During her time in Australia, pioneer Adventist Ellen G. White
Ellen G. White
Ellen Gould White was a prolific author and an American Christian pioneer. She, along with other Sabbatarian Adventist leaders, such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, would form what is now known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church.Ellen White reported to her fellow believers her...

's son Willie convinced Seventh-day Adventist Edward Halsey, a baker at Dr Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism and is best known for the invention of the corn flakes breakfast cereal...

's Battle Creek Sanitarium
Battle Creek Sanitarium
The Battle Creek Sanitarium, in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States, first opened on September 5, 1866, as the Western Health Reform Institute, based on the health principles advocated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1876, John Harvey Kellogg became the superintendent, and his brother, W....

 to immigrate to Australia.

He arrived in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 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
Cooranbong, New South Wales
Cooranbong is a town and rural suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, and is located west of the town of Morisset off the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway....

.

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 humble wooden shed in the Christchurch suburb of Papanui
Papanui
Papanui is a major suburb of Christchurch New Zealand. It is sited five kilometers to the northwest of the city centre. Papanui is a middle socio-economic area with a population of 3,543 consisting predominantly of Pākehā 92.3%, Māori 5.7%, Pacific peoples 2.5%, Asian 5.0%, Middle Eastern/Latin...

.

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

Tax exemption

Due to being owned by a religious organisation, in both Australia and New Zealand the Sanitarium companies do not pay company tax on their profits, something which has been questioned and is considered unfair for other competitors in the same market industry.

Breakfast cereals

  • Weet-Bix
    Weet-Bix
    Weet-Bix is a high-fibre breakfast biscuit manufactured in Australia and New Zealand by the Sanitarium Health Food Company, and in South Africa by Bokomo....

    , and its family of products:
    • Weet-Bix Crunch Honey Bites
    • Weet-Bix Crunch Cocoa Bites
    • Weet-Bix Multi-Grain (formerly Good Start)
    • Weet Bix With Hi-Bran
    • Weet Bix with Oat Bran & Honey toasted Oats
    • Weet-Bix Fruity Bites Apricot, Wildberry (formerly Fruity-Bix)
    • Weetabix (UK & North America)
    • MultiGrain Bites
    • Oat & Barley Bites
  • Up & Go Liquid Breakfast
  • Granola
    Granola
    Granola is a breakfast food and snack food, popular in North America, consisting of rolled oats, nuts, honey, and sometimes rice, that is usually baked until crisp. During the baking process the mixture is stirred to maintain a loose, breakfast cereal-type consistency...

  • Granola Clusters
  • Puffed wheat
  • Honey Weets
  • Skippy Corn flakes
    Corn flakes
    Corn flakes are a popular breakfast cereal originally manufactured by Kellogg's through the treatment of maize. A patent for the product was filed on May 31, 1895, and issued on April 14, 1896.-History:...

  • Skippy Ricies
  • Light'n'tasty
  • Muesli
    Muesli
    Muesli is a popular breakfast cereal based on uncooked rolled oats, fruit and nuts. It was developed around 1900 by Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients in his hospital...

     range (toasted, natural)
  • Cluster Crisp Range (Toasted Oat Cereal)
  • Weeties (relaunched 2008, previously kornies)
  • Double Crunch Apple and Cinnamon (NZ)
  • Double Crunch Apricot (NZ)
  • Coles Smart Buy
  • Aldi Wheat Biscuits
  • IGA Wheat Biscuits
  • GHF Vita Brits (NZ only)
  • GHF Toasted Muesli (NZ)
  • Fibre life Range
  • Bran Bix


Some older names, no longer produced:
  • Gravy Quick
  • NrG Cereal (NZ)
  • Good Morning (NZ)
  • Stamina (NZ)
  • Maximize
  • Lite Bix (NZ)
  • Banana Ricies
  • Favoured Water

Spreads

  • Sanitarium Peanut Butter
    Peanut butter
    Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanuts, popular in North America, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and parts of Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia. It is mainly used as a sandwich spread, sometimes in combination as in the peanut butter and jelly...

  • Peanuts Peanut Butter (No longer made)
  • Natural Peanut Butter
  • Marmite
    Marmite
    Marmite is the name given to two similar food spreads: the original British version, first produced in the United Kingdom and later South Africa, and a version produced in New Zealand...

     (NZ & Aus)
  • Vitamite (Aust)

Dairy alternatives

  • So Good
    So Good (soy beverage)
    So Good is a brand of fortified soy beverages that is lactose, cholesterol and preservative free. So Good is manufactured by Sanitarium in Australia and New Zealand. In Canada it is prepared by Earth's Own...

    and its family of products:
    • So Good Ice Cream
    • So Good Lite
    • 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

External links

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