Meadow Lea
| Company type | Brand |
|---|---|
| Industry | Food |
| Founded | 1932 in Sydney, Australia |
| Founder | Oliver Triggs |
| Headquarters | Sydney , Australia |
Area served | Australia |
| Products | Polyunsaturated margarine spreads |
| Owner | Goodman Fielder (since 1986) |
Meadow Lea stands as a prominent Australian brand specializing in polyunsaturated margarine spreads. It was established in Sydney in 1932 by Oliver Triggs, who asserted that he was the first to produce table margarine within Australia. Since 1986, ownership has been held by the Australasian food enterprise Goodman Fielder. By the year 1995, Meadow Lea commanded a 25% portion of margarine sales and had maintained its position as Australia's leading margarine brand since 1973.
History
The inception of Meadow Lea Margarine dates back to early 1932 when Oliver Triggs founded it in Newtown, Sydney. Its roots extend to the late 1920s during which Triggs operated a grocery store in Richmond, Victoria, supporting a copha butter manufacturer—a cost-effective substitute for pure butter amid the Great Depression. Following the prohibition of copha butter in Victoria in 1931 aimed at safeguarding the local butter industry, Triggs shifted to producing margarine as an alternative and moved to Sydney around April 1932, taking advantage of more lenient margarine legislation. Subsequently, Meadow Lea experienced swift growth in sales.
During this period, competitors arose: Nuttelex was launched in Melbourne by Hugh Halpin at a former copha butter facility, while Birmacley margarine was created in Fitzroy and later transformed into Colvan table margarine under the management of Ted Mayes' sons after Triggs transferred the Victorian manufacturing license to them in 1956.
In 1932, Meadow Lea's production facility relocated to Wellington Street, Newtown, employing approximately 70 workers by March 1933. In 1934, James Andrew Armstrong joined as sales manager on a commission basis targeting regional markets across New South Wales. By 1939, about three-quarters of Australia's margarine output was generated by ten factories located within NSW. In 1941, Armstrong consented to sell his roughly 25% commission stake to Ken Triggs, Oliver's son, with completion by 1945. That same year saw the factory move again to Alice Street, Newtown, featuring a £15,000 upgrade.
Armstrong divested his shareholding to Ken Triggs in 1945 before retiring. Subsequently, in 1956, Oliver and Ken Triggs sold Meadow Lea—excluding the Victorian license—to Vegetable Oils Proprietary Limited, a subsidiary under Allied Mills Limited.
On April 30, 1986, Allied Mills was acquired by Fielder Gillespie Davis Limited (a division of New Zealand’s Goodman Group), resulting in the creation of Goodman Fielder Limited. In 2015, ownership of Goodman Fielder transferred to Wilmar International and First Pacific; Wilmar assumed full control in 2019 and has since become one of the largest companies by market capitalization listed on the Singapore Exchange.
Products
As of 2010, the MeadowLea portfolio comprised six distinct varieties:
Oliver Triggs
Oliver Francis Triggs (1895–1962) was born in Ascot Vale, Melbourne and spent his childhood on a modest farm. After serving with the Light Horse during World War I, he pursued training as a tailor. In the late 1920s, he and his wife Nita Alice Beck opened a corner grocery store. They had four children: Kenneth, Audray, Marian (non-identical twins), and Jill. Triggs claimed familial ties to brothers AB Triggs and Inigo Triggs.
From 1935 through 1975, the family resided at Edgewater, located at 3-5 Sutherland Crescent, Darling Point—a Spanish-style waterfront residence acquired for £30,000 from George Wirth of Wirth Brothers Circus. The estate featured extensive gardens along with tennis courts and a swimming pool; portions were sold off during the 1950s when Edgewater was divided into three separate homes with Triggs retaining ownership of the upper floor. Between approximately 1939 and 1941, he owned the cruiser Sea Mist, potentially connected to the vessel involved in sinking a Japanese midget submarine during the 1942 Sydney Harbour attack.
Between 1939 and 1946, Triggs possessed Kyalla Park near Orange in New South Wales—a sheep farm and horse stud spanning nearly 2000 acres that included Australia's first electrified sheep-shearing shed. Over subsequent decades, this property was gradually subdivided. His racehorse Gilltown secured victories at the Moonee Valley Cup in both 1939 and 1940 and was a strong contender in the Melbourne Cup.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Nita Triggs owned 'Landers' located in Burradoo near Bowral where their granddaughters engaged actively in equestrian pursuits.
Ken Triggs
Kenneth Oliver Triggs OAM (5 April 1924 – 11 July 2022), son of Oliver Triggs, served as a director and held a 25% stake in Meadow Lea from 1945 until its acquisition by Vegetable Oils Proprietary Limited in 1956. Subsequently, he pursued farming and assumed various leadership positions, including Chairman of the NSW Egg Board, a manufacturer of polystyrene containers, Mutual Home Loans Fund of Australia Limited, and Information Electronics Limited. In 2003, he was appointed Secretary of the Auburn sub-Branch of the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) and was honoured with life membership in 2008. His contributions to veterans and their families were recognised with an Order of Australia in 2011. Triggs married Ruth Carol Donnison in 1950; the couple had two sons, David (born 1957) and Andrew (born 1961). Following their divorce around 1976, he remarried Lesley-Anne Woodward in 1986.
Meadow Lea house
The heritage-listed Art Deco residence known as Meadow Lea, located at 22 Sydney Road, East Lindfield, Sydney, was constructed circa 1941 for James Andrew Armstrong, who at the time was a co-owner holding a 25% share in Meadow-Lea Margarine Co. The property's pool and gardens were featured in the 1946 film A Son Is Born. In 1948, Azzalin Romano—owner of Romanos nightclub restaurant and former seller of the racehorse Bernborough for £93,000—acquired the house for £17,000. The residence changed ownership again in 1955 for £25,000. In 1996, Daniel Kalanderian, co-founder of the Victoria's Basement retail chain, purchased the property for $1.415 million and subsequently added a new wing before placing it on the market for $7.5 million in 2010. By 2014, the asking price had risen to $10 million. In 2020, Kalanderian subdivided the southern gardens into a separate parcel measuring 1,162 square metres with a newly built five-bedroom home (22A Sydney Road), which was listed in April 2022 for $8.5 million and remained unoccupied.